Deathbed Confessions… a 2013 interview with Wilko Johnson, Part 2

Please forgive the lurid headline. When we spoke in April 2013, Wilko was expecting to die from terminal cancer within six months, yet he was philosophical and good-humoured about his predicament. Miraculously, he underwent life-saving surgery in 2014. 

You can read Part 1 of the interview here

The topics in Part 2 include Mickey Jupp, Lee Brilleaux, and Wilko’s departure from Dr Feelgood in 1977.

Q What do you think it was about the Southend area that gave rise to a good number of musicians making an impression?

Wilko: I’ve heard a lot of people theorise about Southend as a hotbed of talent, and say that seaside towns are very good for ‘IT’. The atmosphere of Southend as the seaside town of the East End is very fertile ground for rock’n’roll, but I think it was just lucky that there happened to be two great bands, the Paramounts and the Orioles. Then there was about a 10-year gap, but it was still high in my mind when Dr Feelgood started. I had this lingering respect for Mickey Jupp.

Q I remember you saying around 1974, ‘When Dr Feelgood make it I’m gonna come to Southend and grab Jupp by the scruff of the neck and make him a star.’ Do you remember that?

Wilko: Yeah, I always felt that the world ought to know about Jupp. It seemed a shame that he was a local obscurity. I thought it was necessary that he got to the kind of audience he deserved. I never really knew him personally, and I was always a bit intimidated by him. You’d see him working in the music shop and he’s just a geezer. No Oscar Wilde, but when he picked up a guitar it was spine tingling.

Q Isn’t image equally as important as the music, in terms of broadcasting yourself?

Wilko: That could well be. Confronted by Mickey Jupp I’m just taken by his voice, and his music, and that’s sufficient for me, but how it’s presented or put across, I don’t know. I don’t really know him, but you’re probably right. He’s not a sparkling wit, but he is the man who wrote ‘My Typewriter’! When I saw him working in the music shop it used to amaze me how mundane he seemed, with all the usual shopkeeper’s stock jokes, like, ‘What can I do you for?’ Then you hear some of his brilliant lyrics…

Q When did you first feel that you fancied a bit of success?

Wilko: Even when I was a schoolboy, I really loved playing in local bands, but I never ever thought that maybe I could live off it, or achieve success. I was just happy playing down The Studio, or The Cricketers. When I went to university I stopped. I put my mind to other things and got less snobbish about music. We’d all be sitting around listening to Country Joe and The Fish or whatever, and my guitar was under the bed for about four years. Until I bumped into Lee that day in the street, and his band needed a guitar player. I thought, yeah, why not? I’d just got a job as a schoolteacher, but I don’t think I saw either of them as my future. I was teaching by day and playing down The Railway in Pitsea by night.

Q What happened next?

Wilko: Chris [Fenwick, manager] got us gigs in Holland. We played in these youth houses they have, the first time we played in front of a young audience, rather than playing background music for drinkers down The Railway. It was all right. I remember on the ferry on the way back I was talking to Lee, and I said, ‘Why don’t we try and go for it?’ Lee was reluctant. I said, ‘Bloody hell man, you’re 19, you want to be a solicitor’s clerk?’ Almost immediately after that we started playing down The Esplanade, for an audience that wanted to hear music. Then when we went up to London there was an explosion of interest in us and it was absolutely convincing.

Q What was Lee’s reluctance?

Wilko: I just don’t know. When I first encountered Lee and we put that band together, I always looked on him as a star. It came naturally to him. I wouldn’t have set out to do it by myself. I just thought with a guy like that we could make something of this. I was painting pictures at the time. It was my only aspiration, but that got blown away by the rock’n’roll.

Q Having Lee standing next to you on stage, such a natural, was it a kind of lucky break?

Wilko: Fucking hell, yeah! People go on about, ‘Who was the front man of the Feelgoods, or was it a double act?’ Actually ‘no’ - Lee was the bloody front man. I used to take all my cues from him. In all the pictures of Lee and I on stage, I’m looking at him, like in that famous picture on the Stupidity sleeve. I’m looking at him, but he’s looking out. That was the feeling I used to have when we played, that I was the lieutenant and he was the boss. I would never have gone in for it if it hadn’t been for Lee. I just knew he was a star.

Photograph: Ebet Roberts, 1977

Q When you started jumping up in the air, was that when Lee started doing the press-ups?

Wilko: Yeah! Dr Feelgood was one of those things that had that magic. We’d do things and get a reaction so we’d do it again. We never discussed it or rehearsed it.

Q You always kept a straight face, but you must have been pissing yourself with laughter inside…

Wilko: Oh, you mean the scowls and the glares. It was a game. You’re playing cops and robbers and you’re really feeling ‘this is a machine gun’. But actually it’s a guitar. Come on. You know it’s a guitar, and the audience knows, but it would be silly to have a soppy grin on your face when you’re firing a machine gun!

Q That was what was different about the Feelgoods, mean and moody. One or two other bands later adopted it - The Jam, for example. Never smile. Wasn’t there only ever one candid photo of you smiling? And it got into the NME by mistake?

Wilko: Yes! [laughs] That was the way you felt. That was what people wanted to see and it was part of the connection between the audience and the band.

Q Don’t you think the Feelgoods were the perfect band? Figure could jump-start the van, Sparko could re-wire the joint, and you and Lee did the decorating…  like fours legs of a table?

Wilko: Yes. It made me laugh in the late 60s and 70s when they would put these super-groups together and they were all so hopeless. I’ve never really been managed, and some of the musicians I’ve had were just people who drifted into view. Now I’ve got the most amazing band. Norman is an attraction in his own right, and Dylan has been brill. But then you get cancer and it’s finished [said Wilko, speaking in 2013]. It feels great to be alive, but I regret I can’t have a bit more time doing that.

Q Have you found that people have reacted to your situation in different ways?

Wilko: There have been all sorts of reactions. In Japan, I played with local musicians, although some of them are stars over there. It was while I was in Japan that the news broke that I was ill. In Tokyo the street was full of fans, they had to put screens up to control the overspill from the venue. I came back with a carrier bag full of letters people had handed me, all expressing this personal affection that I didn’t realise existed. I’m popular over there, and a bit of an influential guitarist, but these letters were very moving. I was doing ‘Bye Bye Johnny’ and there were tears everywhere.

Q What are the things you’ve achieved with your music that you are most proud of?

Wilko: Erm… I don’t know… well, it’s got to be Dr Feelgood hasn’t it? I just luckily found myself part of this great thing. It’s been a lingering influence. There are teenage bands doing ‘IT’, now. There’s a band in Glasgow, 15 and 16-year-olds, doing my songs and doing them good. That’s great.

Q What about the Solid Senders, and the album with the sticker ‘Sales Point Wilko’

Wilko: I did everything wrong. Everything started going wrong for me when Feelgoods broke up. The way it broke up… it was partly my fault. With the wisdom of hindsight, that would never have happened. If I’d had a little bit of the sus I’ve got now.

Q You became isolated. Was that to do with their drinking culture?

Wilko: That was quite a big part of it actually. We’d be on the road and I would be up in my room doing whatever, and they would be down at the bar, getting lushed out. And I’d be thinking, ‘What’s happening? Who are they talking about?’

Q Paranoid?

Wilko: No!

Q So they really were out to get you?

Wilko: There were occasions when Lee would be in the next hotel room and the walls were not soundproof. In Germany I think, Lee was drunk and they were all in there, and Lee was giving me a drubbing. Cursing me. I overheard it.

Q Hadn’t there been a bond between Lee and Sparko and Chris that went back to the jug band days? And you came in, as an outsider, and it bonded well and for several years worked brilliantly. But maybe the bond between them was stronger than the bond between you and them?

Wilko: Could well be. But there were all sorts of things about that. When they got me into the band, and remember I am five years older, they first encountered me as – wow – someone to look up to. Lee had quite a bit of admiration for me. What he probably didn’t know was that I had this tremendous admiration for him. I saw him as the star. And the thing is you never tell each other that do you? You don’t say, ‘Hey man, I really admire you!’ If maybe the pair of us had realised the respect we had for each other, it might not have happened. Yes, I did become isolated, cos I was the songwriter, and I had all that bloody worry.

Q Did you really find it hard to write the material, say for the ‘Sneakin’ Suspicion’ album?

Wilko: Lee and I went to Atlanta, to the CBS convention to meet [producer] Bert de Coteaux, cos the Americans wanted that to be their album really. Lee and I were forced to be together for a number of days, and we were getting on all right. Then after that Lee would start coming round my house in the afternoon, and we’d both be sitting there, and we both knew that we were just trying to be friends. I really appreciated him doing that, and I started writing the songs shortly before we went to Rockfield to record that album. In fact, I was still writing some of them while we were there. I was actually writing when they all burst in on me on that final evening and started tearing me to bits. I remember I was feeling really optimistic, thinking ‘it’s all happening’, really pleased with the way it was going, but I now know that while I was sitting there feeling enthusiastic, their knives were already out.

Q Do you think you might have been a bit up yourself at certain points in that period, a bit of a prima donna?

Wilko: I was difficult. Like I say, I’ve never looked back on it and tried to blame anything or anybody, but a lot of the reason I was difficult was because I was isolated and unhappy. The communications had broken down. In fact, during that final ruck, Lee started complaining about me, and he said, ‘It’s just these fucking… silences!’ [laughs loudly] What could I do? I’m sitting there feeling so lonely. And they’re getting uptight, thinking, ‘He’s doing it again, being heavy.’ Really I was just unhappy.

Q They may have seen it as – they were there, four of them including Chris, and this gulf has come about, and they are automatically thinking that the gulf is between them and you. But the gulf might have been between you and the world. The focus is turned on the band but what if you flip it round the other way?

Wilko: You could be right, and I do know that I would have handled things a lot differently if I could be there again now. But then my reaction was to retreat into myself, and throw wobblers just to try and defend myself. From what, I don’t know. I didn’t understand about compromising or anything then, which I understand a little bit better now.

Q What about ‘Lucky Seven’, credited solely to Lew Lewis. I was told recently that all Lew had was the words, and that Sparko produced Lew’s words and Bert de Coteaux sat down at the piano and started riffing on it….

Wilko: Well, I don’t know because I wasn’t there, was I? I ain’t even playing the guitar on that track – that’s how bad it had become – but Lew had written this song, on the back of a fag packet I believe, and he wanted to come down to Rockfield but they wouldn’t let him. I didn’t see Lew at the time. I had nothing to do with him. I didn’t like ‘Lucky Seven’, and that was part of the argument, but it wasn’t what the argument was about…

Wilko continued to tell me the story of his departure from Dr Feelgood - nearly 40 years ago - and the precise moment that he knew it was all over. Wilko’s autobiography is about to be published.

 ‘Don’t You Leave Me Here: My Life’ by Wilko Johnson is published by Little, Brown on 26 May 2016

Further reading:

‘Wilko Johnson: Looking Back At Me’ with Zoe Howe is published by Cadiz Music

'Hole In My Pocket: The True Legend of Mickey Jupp' by Mike Wade

'Lee Brilleaux: Rock'n'Roll Gentleman' by Zoe Howe is published by Polygon

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Lee Brilleaux 10 May 1952 - 7 April 1994

Photo: Patrick Higgins

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Lee's death I offer the following article written for Uncut in 2004.

An Officer and a Gentleman

As the media trumpet the genius of Kurt Cobain, who shot himself in the head 10 years ago, let us not forget another rock’n’roll hero who died that same week, gentleman Lee Brilleaux. When news of Cobain’s messy demise reached the UK, news editors were tasked with shuffling the obituaries, with Cobain ‘enjoying’ the edge. But although Cobain’s music owed little to the barroom R&B of Dr Feelgood, the Nirvana phenomenon was arguably a knock-on effect of the Sex Pistols, whose own licence to thrill was enabled by the Feelgoods. So, in a sense: no Brilleaux, no Cobain.

For over 20 years Lee fronted a succession of Feelgood line-ups, dispensing white-hot R&B from stages large and small. He gave it the max every night and like all great performers, the tougher the job, the harder he worked. In the group’s early days, Lee stunned tiny pub audiences with wild antics and a back-to-basics musical approach, incongruous with the hyperbole of progressive rock, then in its heyday. When the Feelgoods made their London debut in 1973, it was frankly touch and go, but the group quickly adapted to the demands of the circuit, building a huge following and smashing attendance records in pubs and clubs.

Lee and guitarist Wilko Johnson had no problem making the transition to larger stages; they simply exaggerated the moves they had honed in the pubs. Wilko recalled, “We got four gigs supporting Hawkwind. We were completely unknown and in Manchester they threw pennies at us. I remember Lee calmly picked up one of the pennies. Then he bit it, and with a mean look, tossed it aside, as if it were a dud. The place erupted. It was a turning point.”

It was the combination of Lee’s cool nonchalance, Wilko’s maniacal careering back and forth and the fastest, most relentless music on the scene that made the Feelgoods a top concert attraction. And when the group enjoyed something of a revival in the late eighties, Lee looked like a giant from the furthest corner of the cavernous Town & Country Club as he took the stage in a powder blue suit, belting out ‘King For A Day’.

Space considerations do not permit a re-telling of the Feelgood legend. Those Uncut readers who saw the group at their mid-Seventies peak know what all the fuss was about whilst younger readers will soon be able to check out the Feelgoods’ Going Back Home concert from 1975 on DVD. 

Lee’s widow, Shirley, who first met Lee in the mid-seventies, recalls, “He was very methodical and lived his life by the rules. In his mind, it was OK if an old dear jumped the queue, but God help anyone else. He was incredibly moral and his integrity was impeccable. One day our daughter, Kelly, came home from school with a £10 note she had ‘found’. Lee marched her down to the school and made her tell the headmistress how she’d come by the money. I’d like to think it made a lasting impression on Kelly.” 

“He was very loyal,” says Larry Wallis. “If anyone started to bad-mouth someone to him, Lee would say, ‘You’re talking to the wrong man.’ Today, if I find myself with a moral dilemma, I always ask myself, ‘What would Brilleaux do?’ ”

“Lee was also very intense,” continues Shirley, “and not the easiest person to live with. The fact that we were together for 18 years is largely attributable to the fact that he was away so much, because he expended a lot of that aggression on tour.”

In 1991, Lee sat for local artist Anthony Farrell and over the next two-and-a-half years attended some 30 sittings, resulting in two paintings, the second of which was completed during the final months of Lee’s life. Deemed too harrowing for public display, it shows Lee in the final ravages of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, weak from chemotherapy and near to death. “After I finished the first picture he told me he wasn’t well,” says Anthony, “but he agreed to a second one. It evolved as the drama unfolded. It was appallingly difficult, seeing someone deteriorate in front of my eyes. I could have chickened out at any point but Lee was as tough as nails. He knew the game was up, but he put a brave face on things.”

In the summer of 1993, Lee came out of hospital and took his family on holiday to Disneyworld, a very un-Brilleaux like destination it would seem, but there is evidence of Lee enjoying Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, holding onto his silver-topped cane. Of course the trip to Florida was for his children, Kelly and Nick, of whose progress he would have been extremely proud. Nick, now 16, has a promising future as a film-maker, evidenced by his hilarious website at brilleauxfilms.com

Lee’s final public appearance, in January 1994, was at the Dr Feelgood Music Bar on Canvey Island. Extremely frail, but with a glint in his eye and immaculately attired, he perched on a stool centre stage and heroically performed a mix of Feelgood classics like ‘Down At The Doctors’ and newer material from his final recording, The Feelgood Factor.

Then, on 7 April 1994, he died, a victim of cancer at the age of 41. At Lee’s funeral, his best friend and business manager, Chris Fenwick, gave a moving eulogy before Lee’s coffin was despatched to the sound of Junior Walker’s ‘Roadrunner’, a Brilleaux favourite. An enduring memory from that day was the sight of Dr Feelgood’s three surviving original members - Wilko, Sparko and the Big Figure - huddled together in the graveyard, mourning the loss of their former singer. Wilko, in particular, was in a highly emotional state. He had not seen much of Lee during the 17 years that separated his own dramatic exit from the group and Lee’s death.

Neither of them lived on Canvey any longer, in fact when the Feelgoods became successful they both left for the mainland, Lee to a smart house in Leigh-on-Sea, that he named ‘The Proceeds’, and Wilko to an equally imposing residence a mile or two away in Westcliff.

“I don’t think Lee ever spoke to Wilko,” says Shirley, “but he spoke a lot about him.” Their paths never crossed, until the fateful day in 1991 when a Japanese promoter thought it might be a terrific wheeze to put them on the same bill.

I recall the night Chris broke the news to Lee over a curry. “We’ve been offered some dates in Japan,” Chris announced warily. “Great!” said Lee, slurping a lager, “good money?” “Yeah, the money’s OK,” replied Chris, “but there might be a snag – we’re opening for Wilko.” All eyes turned to Brilleaux, half expecting him to choke on his madras, but of course Lee responded calmly, taking the opportunity to have a good-humoured dig at the guitarist. “I see,” said Lee, “and might we be travelling on the same plane?” “I’m afraid so,” replied Chris. “Well then, I’ll upgrade to first class so that when Wilko gets on the plane, I’ll be sitting up front, getting stuck into the champagne. And halfway through the flight, I could turn around and raise a glass to Wilko.” Lee then paused thoughtfully, remembering Wilko’s teetotalism, and added, “Oh, sorry Wilko, you don’t, do you?” 

Brilleaux’s local pub was The Grand, after which he named the independent record label that handled the Feelgoods reissues. “It was his second home,” says Shirley, “in fact sometimes, when he returned home from a tour, he would go there first.” The Grand was a five-minute walk from The Proceeds and over a period of about 10 years, in between tours, it was where Lee could be found most evenings around six, enjoying ‘an early one’. He would sit at the bar, peering over half-moon specs, toying with the Telegraph crossword, whilst awaiting the arrival of his small coterie of drinking buddies, to whom he gave amusing names, such as ‘Dennis The Dog’, ‘Ron the Kite‘ and ‘Colin the Socialist’.

Lee tolerated The Grand, even when it was a poorly managed house, but he really lost his temper the night the pub ran out of ice, giving him an opportunity to exercise his cool style. They still talk about the night Lee sidled up to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic, only to be told, “Sorry, there’s no ice.” Lee calmly went to the payphone and ordered a taxi. Twenty minutes later he returned from the supermarket, slapped a large bag on the bar, and roared, “There’s your fucking ice, now give me a gin and tonic!”

Lee’s drinking was legendary and it is impossible to overlook this aspect of his character. Once or twice, I found myself on the road with the latter day Feelgoods, manning the ‘merch stall’ for Chris. At the Douglas Lido, five minutes before curtain up, I watched in disbelief as he prepared his on-stage refreshment. He lined up three pint glasses, each filled with ice, into which he decanted an entire bottle of Gordon’s gin. The industrial strength cocktails were then diluted with an inch or two of tonic - no more - and ceremoniously placed on the drum riser. They lasted Lee until midway through the set, by which time a gaggle of bikers had gathered in front of the stage, and were menacingly shaking up cans of lager. During ‘Rock Me Baby’, I think, the cans were cracked open and Lee was sprayed with beer. Ever the showman, his reaction was to simply smile, roll back his head and bask in the foaming shower, holding out his arms and gesturing for more.

“When he was working he was very careful not to cross the line with his drinking, although he did often make it across that line,” says his wife. “He was more apt to overdo it when he was at home. He loved going to restaurants, food and wine, books and music - that was how he wanted to live out his life. But he was also a wonderful father and husband. When I was training to become a nurse, he would be home, doing the shopping, cooking, picking up the kids, he did an awful lot. I keep finding old cookbooks with Lee’s notations and little recipes he invented. He used to write out the menu and post it on the door.”

Adds Larry Wallis: “When I talk about Lee, food features a lot. He was a trencherman. Not that he ate a lot; he just ate well. Pickles and chutneys were a big one with Lee - he didn’t buy ‘em, he made ‘em. At Christmas, there was always the appropriate time to take a stroll down to the pub and stop off at various shops to give Lee time to order the pork pies, the haunch of venison and the right casks of beer that had to be brought into the house so many days before the event. Brilleaux was the master at entertaining, he was the quintessential Englishman.”

“When they were on tour, he would always have his Michelin Guide or a book on objects of historic interest. He would know the chateau to visit and the three-star Michelin restaurant that was nearby. And he always knew the little village off the beaten track where you could find a local ale he hadn’t tried yet. If you mentioned, for example, Henry VIII, Lee would be able to tell you some completely obscure, but incredibly amusing fact about him.”

So extensive was Lee’s knowledge of European hotels and restaurants, built up through years of hard touring, he even considered writing a book, jokingly referred to as ‘The Brilleaux Guide’. In Europe, while other group members drove, he would travel by train or plane. He usually wore a suit, to improve his chance of an upgrade. “He was quite blunt about it,” says Shirley. “He didn’t have the time or the patience for arduous journeys in the later years.”

Kevin Morris, Dr Feelgood’s drummer since 1983, agrees that Lee’s travelling arrangements were partly a desire to experience as much as possible of what ‘the road’ had to offer. “Lee and I would often get up early and stop somewhere civilised for lunch, then relax before the evening’s show,” he recalls. “Lee knew all the best places and what local delicacies might be on offer. It made touring bearable.”

Lee was also a bit of a dandy and would always dress for the occasion, whether it be fronting the Feelgoods, or strolling out to a luncheon. Larry Wallis pictures the scene: “Sunday night at the Hackney Empire, five minutes to show time, and Lee’s preparing to become the on-stage spiv. The Slim-Jim strides are on, the box jacket is on its hanger ready for action, and the inch-wide necktie is nicely in place when Lee produces a fabulous pair of side-lace-up winkle-pickers about a yard long. I enquire of their origin. ‘They come from a little shop in Carnaby Street,’ says Lee, ‘that does an absolutely disgusting range of foot-furniture.’ I cracked up. The last time I saw Lee, he was wearing the tweed cheese-cutter, a Barbour jacket, silk cravat and a lovely pair of Sherlock-style boots, topped off with the walking stick. ‘Nice outfit Lee,’ I said. Lee looked puzzled for a moment. ‘What outfit?’ he asked.”

Lee was a hero and a gentleman and enjoyed a huge amount of admiration and loyalty from fans and friends alike. In his book, Down By The Jetty, Tony Moon wrote: “The image that Lee evoked as a frontman became, for us, a barometer against which anything and everything could be measured and tested. For example, if we were watching something on the telly, our immediate retort would be, ‘Yes, but would Lee Brilleaux like it?’ For example, would Lee Brilleaux like gatefold double album sleeves? Low-tar tipped cigarettes? That style of shirt? The answer always seemed to be a very positive and life-affirming, ‘NO HE FUCKIN’ WOULDN’T.’ ”

Nick Lowe, producer of two Dr Feelgood albums and co-writer of ‘Milk And Alcohol’, has the last word: “Even back in the seventies, I used to feel a bit thick around Lee. He was so well-read and rounded. The last time I saw him for lunch, we arranged to meet in the French House. He looked like a medieval English professor at some red brick university, swathed in tweeds and finishing The Times crossword, which he put away very hurriedly when I arrived. He was pretty focussed that day on things he wasn't focussed on before. He was always very elegant, but towards the end there was this great knowingness. Lee was a really classy guy. I think about him all the time.”

BRILLEAUX STYLE

Lee's consuming passions, from Howlin' Wolf to Soho boozers...

Howlin’ Wolf left Lee reeling when he performed live at the King’s Head, Romford in 1968. He paid a tribute to his hero on the final Feelgood recording, Wolfman Calling. 

Auberon Waugh’s column in the Daily Telegraph was a must-read, as well as Dickens, Trollope and Patricia Highsmith. The Crust On Its Uppers by Derek Raymond, Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess and the travel books of Eric Newby were also on his list.

“Squire Haggard’s Journal by Michael Green was Lee’s favourite book,” recalls Larry Wallis. “I spent a Christmas at Lee’s house crying with laughter over it. I referred to Lee as Squire Haggard - very English, fond of a decent brandy.”

Los Caracoles, Barcelona was one of Lee’s favourite restaurants. Others include La Coupole, Paris, and Gay Hussar in London. “The wild man of R&B always carried the Michelin Guide,” says Wallis.

Mr Eddie & Chris Kerr of Berwick Street was Lee’s tailor, supplying the stage suits that withstood a nightly pounding.

Gent’s Suede Chukka Boots by New & Lingwood of Jermyn Street - Lee was extremely excited when he discovered these little numbers.

‘She Does It Right’ was Lee’s favourite Feelgood track. He acknowledged that Wilko’s songs were the essence of the early Feelgoods.

The Coach & Horses in Soho was one of Lee’s favourite pubs, not least of all because of its association with the writer Jeffrey Bernard. And The Punch House in Monmouth was “always worth a detour.” 

Courage Directors heads the beer list. “He enjoyed the Spanish brandy Cardinal Mendoza,” recalls friend Keith Smith. “If you were dining at The Proceeds you knew you were in for a very late night when Lee announced it was time for the Cardinal.”

Toby Jugs - the Feelgoods themselves were immortalised in glazed clay for 1979’s Let It Roll.

With thanks to Shirley Brilleaux, Larry Wallis, Kevin Morris, Chris Fenwick and Keith Smith.

Lee and Will 1986 Photo: Steve O'Connell

Two new Lee Brilleaux-related books are in the works:

Roadrunner: The authorised biography of Lee Brilleaux by Zoe Howe - Unbound Books - pledge here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/roadrunner

Shot of Rhythm & Blues - photographs by Patrick Higgins

Click here to order by email

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It was 20 years ago today: Lee Brilleaux's last show

Photo: Steve O'Connell

DR FEELGOOD at the Dr Feelgood Music Bar, Canvey Island, January 1994

Out beyond the Essex flatlands, down on the Thames Delta, in the shadow of the refinery, past the wooden shacks and executive housing estates, deep in the hollow, lies the Dr Feelgood Music Bar, six months in business and living with the threat of the developer's bulldozer. Over the deep-puddled car park, through the neon-lit door, past security and the Feelgood merchandise unit, beyond the crowded music room and smoke filled main bar, out in the back, over a pint, sits Lee Brilleaux. He is thirty minutes away from his first public appearance in twelve months. After twenty years of relentless touring, during which the insides of almost every live music venue in Europe and its nearby hotels, bars and restaurants have been explored, savoured and annotated, Brilleaux was forced, in February 1993, to cease operations. Ill health had dictated that it was time to lay off the band, garage the van and take down the backdrop.

Tonight, after an uncertain year, the music room is packed with the faithful. Many have travelled hundreds of miles and crossed borders to see the return of Brilleaux. He is wearing an immaculate Soho suit and is seated, centre stage, on a barstool, lending the proceedings a touch of the Unpluggeds. His musicians, Steve Walwyn (guitar), Dave Bronze (bass), Kevin Morris (drums) and Ian Gibbons (piano), temper the volume and lay down the groove for a sixty minute set of rockhouse rhythms and deep blues. Having been restricted to singing in the shower for a year, Brilleaux quickly finds his voice. 'LA Lady lives in a home.' he rasps, 'made entirely of styrofoam'. On the low stage, he rises from his barstool to take a harmonica solo.  Most of the audience in the packed room get their first glimpse of the man in over a year. An enormous cheer goes up.  Lee looks surprised, but soon realises it is probably not his harmonica skills they are applauding. They are simply overjoyed to see the guvnor, back in his natural habitat, alive and kicking.

Originally published in Mojo 1994

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Gypie Mayo 1951-2013, guitar strangler extraordinaire

Photo: Sandra Henningsson

There is no doubt that the British rhythm and blues combo Dr Feelgood was as much a hot house for great guitarists as were The Yardbirds (Clapton, Beck, Page...), or that Wilko Johnson created the template on which the Feelgoods’ sound was built. And so, when in 1977 Wilko departed the band he lovingly formed with Lee Brilleaux, Sparko and The Big Figure, it left an impossible void.

For a moment, the Feelgoods’ considered seasoned pro Henry McCullough (Wings), and others, to step up to the plate. Not to ‘dis’ such capable musicians, but sometimes it takes more than musical chops to complement an existing combo and help drive it into a future it deserves. It was therefore major good fortune that brought the Feelgoods’ attention to one John Philip Cawthra, born London, 1951.

They ‘found’ him (and nearly didn’t) in Harlow, Essex. He was living in a squat with a guitar, an amp, and a stack of blues LPs. The Big Figure was sent to kidnap him, gangland style. He was told that his name was ‘a bit of a mouthful’, and so a telephone directory was slung in his direction, with the command, ‘pick yourself a name out of there’. The pages fell open at M, and ‘Mayo’ jumped out. When Lee Brilleaux observed that their new guitarist always seemed to have some medical complaint – ‘the gyp’ – ‘Gypie Mayo’ was born.

It was a tough challenge to follow the great Wilko Johnson, bur Gypie managed, and introduced into the Feelgood mix a broader musical palate. The sounds of Stax, Motown, and even Beatles-baked riffs suddenly fell at the group’s disposal. Mayo had listened to it all, absorbed it, and poured it out through every sinew of his dextrous chord-shaping fingers. Needless to say, Brilleaux was impressed.

It fell to Nick Lowe to fashion a whole album’s worth of material from a band that was still reeling from the departure of its major songwriter, Wilko. ‘I felt my job was to help them get a foot in the door,’ says Nick. ‘I used to go down to Canvey to their rehearsals, and helped to bring the songs together in a collaborative way. Gypie was a fantastic guitarist and he was perfect for them.’

Be Seeing You

The resulting album was Be Seeing You, and the following year Lowe was again called in to assist with a song for the next Dr Feelgood LP, Private Practice. ‘I think I might have been in bed when they called. I went over to Eden. I can’t remember if they had the title Milk And Alcohol, but we were talking about an experience we’d had in the States a few years earlier, when I was a Dr Feelgood roadie.’

Milk And Alcohol, based on a guitar riff by Gypie, became the Feelgoods’ biggest hit single. They had also scored with a cover of Mickey Jupp’s Down At The Doctors, and it was the success of these records in 1978/79 that fuelled the Feelgoods’ bankability on the live circuit throughout the turn of the next decade.

But by 1980 Gypie had become tired of being part of a relentless touring machine, not that he disliked the music, the great album A Case Of The Shakes was testament to the musical excitement he helped create. But the constant strain of being pulled away from his young family was too much, He had also fallen victim to drug abuse, as he openly admitted to me earlier this year. ‘We worked ourselves a little bit too hard,’ he said. ‘There were two reasons I quit; one was domestic, and the other was that we simply didn't have time to work on the music. We were burnt out and it was down to me to be the creative one and come up with ideas. I felt I wasn't able to fill that role. I’m not proud of the fact I became addicted, but I’m not deeply, deeply ashamed either.’

Many years passed before Gypie settled into his next name band, the re-formed Yardbirds. To fill the shoes of their legendary players like Clapton and Beck was a doddle for Gypie. He had it all down, a master player, and a true gentleman. In more recent times Gypie travelled to Japan with former surviving Feelgoods colleagues Sparko and Figure as ‘The Lone Sharks’, and also became a guitar teacher in Bath.

A DVD set of Dr Feelgood from ‘Rockpalast’ 1980 is due soon from Repertoire Records.

   

The totality of Gypie’s recorded work with Dr Feelgood can be found on the luxury box set ‘Taking No Prisoners’.

Taking No Prisoners

Taking No Prisoners

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Having a Rave Up with The Strypes

courtesy Daily Telegraph

I know I’m a bit late for this bus, but I finally caught it last night when The Strypes played Canvey Island’s Oysterfleet Hotel. They were joined on stage for two numbers by their ‘musical heroes’ Wilko Johnson and John B Sparkes, both late of local template makers, Dr Feelgood. Or is that The Yardbirds… or The Kinks… or even the Downliners Sect?

Their show was peppered with many of those 1960s beat group staples, including Slim Harpo’s Got Love If You Want It (dipping into The High Numbers’ I’m The Face), Jessie Hill’s Ooh Poo Pah Doo, and of course, Route 66. For a more contemporary edge they cover Nick Lowe’s Heart Of The City. They've also got some home-baked songs, notably Blue Collar Jane and What A Shame, and boast an astonishingly tight rhythm section; a child prodigy on electric guitar, and a singer in whom the ferocity of Brilleaux meets the onstage bashfulness of Joey Ramone. And most importantly, in my mind, they've got the look.

With a combined age a little lower than that of the youngest member of the Rolling Stones, and a musical power that channels the Jeff Beck Group on steroids, the precocious Strypes are surely the most exciting new musical prospect in years for lovers of old school rhythm and blues. Handled with care, as they seem to be judging by their mentally muscular entourage, they could become a national phenomenon. And, if this is what they can do at – close your eyes and you won’t believe it – 15, they may one day take the world, or that little part of it that is still populated by rock and roll nuts.

The Strypes with Wilko and Sparko, Canvey Island 8 August 2013
http://thestrypes.com/

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