Wilko Johnson RIP

[John Meachen]

A little while ago I was checking the TV schedule for tonight and I found that Sky Arts are showing the documentary Oil City Confidential as a tribute to the late Wilko Johnson.I hadn't known he was no longer with us and now,sadly,on checking I do know that he died on Monday evening.I doubt that many on this forum will have heard of him as his kind of music was very much rooted in the Thames estuary and his high energy guitar playing was a driving force behind Dr Feelgood.I would recommend those who might be curious to seek out "Back in the Night" or "Milk and Alcohol" to discover his singular approach to driving a tune along.He had a serious bout of cancer and after a hugely complex operation he had the good fortune to live a few more years and even gain a little fame for his part in Game of Thrones.He leaves a gap.

[Peerie Maa]

I watched his biopic on 't telly The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson. I could really relate to the man

On 25 January 2013, he gave an interview to John Wilson on the BBC Radio 4 arts programme Front Row. He discussed his cancer and said doctors had told him he had nine or ten months to live.

However, Johnson did not have the more common adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. It was later discovered that he had a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour (PanNET), a less aggressive and more treatable form of the disease. Johnson underwent radical surgery to treat his illness, and the doctors were hopeful that his prognosis would be good.At the Q Awards on 22 October 2014, Johnson accepted the "Icon Award" and announced that he was "cancer-free" having undergone "removal of his pancreas, spleen, part of his stomach, small and large intestines and the removal and reconstruction of blood vessels relating to the liver". Johnson said: "It was an 11-hour operation… This tumour weighed 3kg – that's the size of a baby! Anyway, they got it all. They cured me. It's so weird and so strange that it's kind of hard to come to terms with it in my mind.

On his foray into acting

For his acting debut, Johnson was cast in the role of mute executioner Ser Ilyn Payne, in both the first and second season of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones,^[26][27] after the producers had seen him in Oil City Confidential. He related that "'They said they wanted somebody really sinister who went around looking daggers at people before killing them. That made it easy. Looking daggers at people is what I do all the time, it's like second nature to me'."^[28] He appeared in four episodes: "The Kingsroad", "Baelor" and "Fire and Blood" (season one, 2011), and "Blackwater" (season two, 2012).^[29]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilko_Johnson