Canvey Island-born Wilko Johnson (actually John Peter Wilkinson) is, of course, usually associated with the early years of Dr. Feelgood and, as such, represents an iconic figure in the emergence of the punk and new wave movements in England.
Not, of course, that the University of Newcastle upon Tyne graduate (BA in English Language and Literature with courses in early Anglo-Saxon and ancient Icelandic sagas, very much Tolkein territory) was ever a punk. In fact, he was quite a few things that don't appear on the surface.
For a start, after graduating, the future iconic punk figure followed the hippy trail overland to India. When he got back from Goa he picked up gigs with the Pigboy Charlie Band (the evolutionary forbear of Dr. Feelgood) something he combined with a daytime job as an English teacher.
That was 1972.
Just over mid-way through the following year (13 July, if you want to be precise) Dr Feelgood made their London pub debut, and by the autumn they were packing out regular pub gigs, though it wasn't a lucrative exercise for the musos. For the publicans, definitely, but not for the bands. Still it opened the door to other, better-paying gigs and set things up for a record contract that delivered Down by the Jetty, Malpractice, Stupidity and Sneakin' Suspicion between 1975 and 1977.
Not that everything was sweetness and light. There were off-stage issues between Wilko, who didn't drink, and the rest of the band, who did. To the extent of a bottle of spirits, six or seven pints of beer, a couple of bottles of wine each as well as a welter of cocktails. That's bassist The Big Figure, quoted in Will Birch's No Sleep Till Canvey Island.