Joe Strummer of The Clash is one of my musical heroes. His sudden death from a congenital heart defect, at the end of 2002, came at a time when he was making some of the best music of his career. After The Clash broke up, Strummer bounced around for awhile, releasing the little-heard album "Earthquake Weather" in the late 80's and writing the soundtrack for the movie "Walker" (among other collaborations). Yet it was his three albums with his backing band, The Mescaleros, that showed Strummer had returned to the creative peak of his Clash days. What made his resurgence even better was that Strummer's voice had gained a layer of depth and world-weariness missing from his early days. These albums also saw his influences expand beyond the narrow (but awesome) Jamaican music scene to cover the whole world.
Here is one of my favorite post-Clash songs, "Johnny Appleseed." It was (briefly) the opening theme to the short-lived David Milch HBO series, "John From Cincinnati." Though I've heard this song a million times, gives me shivers every time. (As usual, the video won't load on the main page, so click read more to see it).
What kind of Clash fan would I be if I didn't post an actual Clash song? I was ready to post the album version of "White Man in Hammersmith Palais," which included a video montage, but I found a killer live version from the Roseland Ballroom in 1999 instead.
"Dillinger and Leroy Smart/ Delroy Wilson, cool operator/ Ken Boothe you can't comprehend..."
Have a great Music Monday!
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