![]() By October 2013, defying his doctor’s prognosis, Wilko was still on the road. You’re just trying to make the most of the time you’ve got.”Īnd he did, playing fiery concerts with his super-tight and versatile three-piece combo, featuring ex-Blockheads Norman Watt Roy on bass and Dylan Howe on drums. “I accept that it’s gonna kill me in the near future, so really you don’t want to waste your time trying to fight it, ‘cause you’re not gonna win. “To be told that your death is imminent, it gives you a different way of understanding that, it leads to insights.” Johnson referred to his diagnosis as “the verdict”. “We all know its coming but death is something that you postpone to the indefinite future,” Johnson told me when we spoke that year, and he still believed the end was nigh. Given 10 months to live, he turned down chemotherapy and went on tour, displaying an equanimity that made him a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit. The iconic guitarist was rushed to a hospital with a stomach aliment in November 2012, and subsequently diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in January 2013. Johnson’s brush with death is one of the strangest yet most uplifting stories in rock. And if there is any comfort to be had in that sad news, it is that Wilko beat the odds, making music for almost 10 years since he was supposed to shuffle off this mortal coil. The great British guitarist and songwriter Wilko Johnson has died, aged 75.
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