Wilko Johnson

Today is also the anniversary to three years of the day that Wilko Johnson had the operation to remove the enormous tumor that it had been assumed was going to kill him. He's back to almost perpetual touring now, making the most of his respite. I saw him a couple of weeks ago playing the Wylam Brewery in Newcastle and he was in mighty form. It felt like you were watching a genuine legend and what I'd put it down to ultimately, is the way that he moved. The music itself is beautiful in its simplicity, unreconstructed Chicago blues with a dash of Mick Green, the Johnny Kidd & the Pirates guitarist who was the early inspiration for Johnson's playing style. But it was when at various points of each song that he moved that you made sense of the man's enormous reputation. It was like he was on rails often scuttling sideways in crab-like fashion. It fell like you were witnessing one of the wonders of a vanishing world. Magnificent!