Joe Strummer

John Graham Mellor (21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002), known professionally as Joe Strummer, was a British musician. He was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of punk rock band the Clash.

Strummer's other career highlights included stints with the 101ers, the Latino Rockabilly War, the Mescaleros and the Pogues, as well as solo music, acting, scoring television shows and films and hosting the BBC Radio show London Calling. Strummer and the Clash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2003. In his remembrance, Strummer's friends and family established The Joe Strummer Foundation (initially known as Strummerville), a non-profit organisation that gives opportunities to musicians and supports projects around the world to create empowerment through music.

Strummer was born John Graham Mellor in Ankara, Turkey, on 21 August 1952, the son of a Scottish mother and English father. His mother, Anna Mackenzie (1915–1986), was the daughter of a crofter and was born and raised in Bonar Bridge; she later became a nurse. His father, Ronald Ralph Mellor MBE (1916–1984), was born in Lucknow, India, where his father worked as a railway official; Ronald Mellor became a clerical officer, who later attained the rank of second secretary in the foreign service. Through his father, Strummer had an Armenian great-grandfather who had lived in India and a German Jewish great-grandmother. At the age of nine, Strummer and his 10-year-old brother David began boarding at the City of London Freemen's School in Surrey and rarely saw their parents during the next seven years. He later said, "t the age of nine I had to say good-bye to them because they went abroad to Africa or something. I went to boarding school and only saw them once a year after that – the Government paid for me to see my parents once a year. I was left on my own, and went to this school where thick rich people sent their thick rich kids. Another perk of my father's job – it was a job with a lot of perks – all the fees were paid by the Government."

Strummer developed a love of rock music by listening to records by Little Richard, the Beach Boys and Woody Guthrie. Strummer would even go by the nickname "Woody" for a few years. He would later refer to the Beach Boys as "the reason played music". By 1970, his brother had become estranged from the family. His suicide in July of that year profoundly affected Strummer, as did having to identify his body after it had lain undiscovered for three days. Strummer said, " was a year older than me. Funnily enough, you know, he was a Nazi. He was a member of the National Front. He was into the occult and he used to have these deaths-heads and cross-bones all over everything. He didn't like to talk to anybody, and I think suicide was the only way out for him. What else could he have done"

After finishing his time at the City of London Freemen's School in 1970, Strummer moved on to the Central School of Art and Design in London, where he briefly considered becoming a professional cartoonist and completed a one-year foundation course. During this time, he shared a flat in Palmers Green with friends Clive Timperley and Tymon Dogg. He said, "I bought a ukulele. No kidding. I saved some money, £1.99 I think, and bought it down Shaftesbury Avenue. Then the guy I was busking with taught me to play 'Johnny B. Goode'. I was on my own for the first time with this ukulele and 'Johnny B. Goode'. And that's how I started."

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.