Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe
Strummer
By Chris Salewicz (Faber and Faber, $30)
Despite the Clash's status as "the Only Band That Matters," for
years there was little published on the revered British rock group.
Only Marcus Gray's 1996 demystifying
The Last Gang
in Town attempted to recount the band's relatively brief but
eventful history in any detail. However, since front man Joe
Strummer's tragic death from an undiagnosed heart defect in 2002,
there's been an explosion of books - covering everything from
studies devoted to the group's politics to its recording
techniques. Into this suddenly crowded field comes Chris Salewicz's
Strummer bio,
Redemption Song. It bills
itself as the definitive biography, and it's a claim the author can
make legitimately, as he was a longtime intimate of the group and
regarded by Strummer as the "only journalist he trusted." The
book's narrative is unique, too: Part traditional bio, part
personal remembrance, and part investigative odyssey, it feels more
like the result of a serious quest than a quick cashing in. Born
John Mellor, Strummer was raised the privileged son of a
well-traveled, and traveling, foreign diplomat. It was this
itinerant childhood that helped him develop his curiosity about
different types of music and cultures. An art-school failure,
Strummer first came to fame leading
London pub rockers the 101ers,
but he ditched that band in 1976 in favor of the burgeoning punk
movement. Pairing up with songwriter/partner Mick Jones, bassist
Paul Simonon, drummer Topper Headon, and manager/provocateur Bernie
Rhodes, he formed the Clash. As other punk groups fell by the
wayside, the Clash evolved musically and personally, achieving an
unprecedented global success before imploding under the weight of
Strummer's leadership in 1985. With the cooperation of family,
friends, and bandmates, Salewicz offers plenty of fresh insights,
particularly concerning the suicide of Strummer's older brother and
the singer's own lifelong battles with depression.
Redemption Song, however, is not
hagiography: The author doesn't hesitate to portray the many
sides of Strummer's complex, contradictory, and often
hypocritical personality, offering what should be the final
word on the Clash and its leader. - B.M.