The Jam's origins go back to Sheerwater Secondary School in Woking, Surrey, where Weller and his friends had an arrangement that gradually coalesced into a quartet comprising Weller, guitarists Steve Brookes and Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler, playing covers of American rock and rollers (notably Chuck Berry and Little Richard) until Weller discovered The Who and the sixties Mod lifestyle.
The repertoire changed to include Motown, Stax and Atlantic material, Brookes departed and Weller persuaded Foxton to switch to bass. Weller had been playing bass but switched to guitar, working up a lead/rhythm style that was basically Pete Townshend crossed with Dr. Feelgood's Wilko Johnson.
They were signed to Polydor in early 1977, and their debut single, In the City hit the charts, followed by the album debut, a mixture of Weller originals and R&B covers recorded in eleven days, shortly afterwards. A second single (All Around the World) charted, a second album, This Is the Modern World, followed it, but Weller was running into the wall as far as the writing was concerned. Bruce Foxton was the outfit's other writer, and when they headed into the studio to cut a third album he had contributed most of the material. The consensus was that it wasn't good enough, the ball was back in Weller's court and he retreated to Woking and a steady diet of Kinks albums.
That seems to have been the genesis of the double A-side (David Watts/'A' Bomb in Wardour Street). David Watts was a Kinks cover, but A' Bomb In Wardour Street targeted the thugs that plagued the punk scene. The next single Down in the Tube Station at Midnight worked the same territory and the next brace of albums, All Mod Cons and Setting Sons had increasingly political overtones and managed to combine critical acclaim and commercial success.
From there, the band's singles and albums continued to chart, as Weller's inspiration moved onwards through the late sixties. He'd gone from Pete Townshend to Ray Davies, moving from there into psychedelia a la Revolver while maintaining the social commentary on tracks like That's Entertainment and throwing in strong dashes of more contemporary R&B and post-punk influences on Sound Effects.
The R&B elements were well and truly to the forefront by 1982's The Gift, which hit #1 on the British album charts. Town Called Malice with its Motown-style bass line did the same, and the string of hits continued through The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow) and Beat Surrender, but Weller had had enough, disbanding the group in December 1982 and moving on to The Style Council with ex-Merton Parkas keyboard player Mick Talbot.
Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler followed their own paths from there, without matching Weller's success, both with Style Council and as a solo artist as The Jam's back catalogue continued to move compilations and box sets. The five-CD box set Direction Reaction Creation, featuring all of the band's studio material and a disc of rarities peaked at No. 8 on the British album charts in 1997.