Joe Strummer
Post-Clash ‘greatest hits’ heralds new Dark Horse label reissue deal.
Strummer’s sudden passing in December 2002 still hurts as the cruellest tragedy, robbing our culture of his incandescent spirit, Joe from realising his late-life Mescaleros masterpiece Streetcore, and much more for those who knew him.
Although propelled to becoming a posthumous rebel icon alongside Lennon and Marley, Strummer’s solo endeavours have still been overshadowed by The Clash joining The Beatles and Stones as relentlessly repackaged national treasures, bereft of worthwhile compilations until 2018’s rarities-stuffed Joe Strummer 001.
Assembly follows 2020’s announcement that George Harrison’s son Dhani had resuscitated his dad’s Dark Horse imprint and acquired Strummer’s catalogue. Boasting liner notes by Bob’s son Jakob Dylan, it’s the nearest Strummer has had to a ‘greatest hits’, replicating six tracks from 001, bolstered for diehards by a previously unreleased acoustic demo of Junco Partner, and 2001 Brixton Academy versions of The Clash’s I Fought The Law and Rudie Can’t Fail that so faithfully replicate Mick Jones’s complex arrangements it sounds like Joe giving it some welly over a well-drilled tribute band.
But Strummer shouldn’t be denied celebrating the shit-hot band he’d craved since, the rocker he wrote for director Alex Cox’s movie before it was retitled (Jones’s participation showing how easily The Clash could have survived), and the softly sashaying from 1989’s solo .
