On this day in 1952, the legendary Joe Strummer was born.
John Graham Mellor, known from May 1975 as Joe Strummer, was the famed British musician, singer, composer, actor and songwriter who was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist of The Clash, the hugely influential band formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk rock.
The plaque in honour of Joe Strummer which was unveiled at his former home 12 Pentonville in Newport on July 23, 2005
Joe enjoyed a brief spell in South Wales in 1973, when he moved to Newport, 3 years after attending the Central School of Art and Design in London. He did not study at Newport College of Art, but spent a lot of his time in South Wales frequently meeting up with college musicians in the Students' Union in Stow Hill, and eventually becoming the vocalist for Flaming Youth, renaming the band The Vultures. For the next year he was the band's part-time singer and rhythm guitarist.
Mellor’s friend Richard Frame spoke with Wales Online about his experiences living in South Wales:
“He was in art college in London and he was going out with a girl there,” “They split up and she went to Cardiff art college. He followed her down and she told him she wasn’t interested.”
Planning on hitchhiking back to London from Cardiff, his first thumbed lift took him to Newport.
“He decided to call in to see a student that he had been in college within London called Forbes,” adds Frame. “They went up to the Newport College of Art student union and there was a band playing. Liking what he saw, Joe decamped to Newport.”
“He thought this was as good a place to stay for a while, so he brought his stuff down from London, which included the guitar which he had bought some months previously from a shop in Charing Cross Road in London.”
“He’d come down from the leafy suburbs of the south of England and he suddenly found himself in this industrial South Wales town, which was completely alien to anything he’d experienced before, but he loved it.”
Joe co-founded The Clash in 1976, becoming one of the most memorable and influential bands in the original British punk rock scene. On top of this, The Clash always brought social issues to light, including support for the African, Jamaican and West Indian immigrant communities who struggled for unity and integration in London at the time.
Joe sadly passed away on 22nd December 2002.
Credit - Rory Chapman & Tony Woolway
