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49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Joe Strummer's mother - a statement from her family, 9 Jun 2007
Joe Strummer's mother - a statement from her family
This book has depicted Anna Mackenzie, Joe's mother, as an alcoholic and a depressive. Those of us who knew her as a sister or an aunt want to challenge this portrayal. She was a quiet, dignified and private person who was also to us unfailingly warm, welcoming, kind and tolerant.
She was the second child of nine, born on a croft and used to hard work from an early age. She became a nurse which in the 1930s was a job even more physically demanding than it is today. We are mystified by the references to her house as "shabby" and "run down". Neither she nor Joe's father Ron was interested in acquiring or flaunting household possessions. Nor did they sit about as if "they had been used to servants": Anna cooked and looked after the house while Ron was in charge of the garden and the DIY repairs and maintenance.
When we visited her in Warlingham or when she was at home in Bonar Bridge, there was no sign of her drinking excessively. She was a social drinker who had one or two gins in an evening - a habit which she probably picked up in India. She recalled with astonishment and disapproval the large amounts of drinking by others that she had observed in the diplomatic communities. At home, she'd usually go to bed early, leaving her nephews and nieces talking with Ron. He wasn't an alcoholic either though he drank more than she did. Nobody in Anna's family that we've spoken to can understand why she's been portrayed in this way. There's no drinking culture among the Mackenzie women.
Like most people, Anna had to cope with deaths in her family. Her older brother Donald died when she had just turned 17 and her older son David killed himself. She rarely referred to David and did not discuss how his death had affected her. That was not the Mackenzie way. She never struck us as depressed however; she was always reserved, content to lead a quiet life.
She loved and supported Joe; she approved of his principles; she worried about him. She admired Gaby and adored her granddaughters. Joe inherited many of her good qualities.
She was loved by us and greatly liked and respected by all those who really knew her. She deserves for all this to be known.
On behalf of Jessie Mackinnon, Iain Gillies, Anna Gillies, Mairi Macleod, Jan Macleod, Rona McIntosh, Alasdair Gillies, George Macleod, Jane Mackinnon
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Desolation Angel, 30 Dec 2006
One of the sentiments which appears throughout the book is that Joe changed people's lives but was unaware of just how much. I would count myself as one of those he made an impact on as a 14 year old hero worshipping him and the group, right up to the present day when the music and lyrics, especially the lyrics, mean as much as they always did.
The Clash opened me up to all manner of things through their songs including politics, history, literature and the wider world. Joe would mention Jack Kerouac or Neal Cassidy in an interview or name check Federico Lorca in the lyrics and I'd go and find out more about them.
We need heroes in our lives and the group were mine, Joe in particular but where this books succeeds so well is in humanising Joe Strummer as a real life, flesh and blood man saving him from the myth. Now in some ways that's quite a hard thing to take. Here's me in my 40s and still naive enough to subscribe to the myth almost as wholeheartedly as in the past and then I find out that not only is he full of the contradictions which I was aware of but he fell into the traps of sex and drugs to go with his rock and roll to a degree which almost took my breath away compared to what I thought The Clash subscribed to. Without the benefit of the book I might well have simply accused him of hypocrisy, of failing to live up to what I expected of him but what actually emerges is a man haunted by pain and self doubt, a man who took a world view but could not see the truth in front of him and destroyed the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World.
How do you come back from that?
The story makes it clear, it took a long time and involved a lot of pain when Joe was haunted by his black dog of depression but throughout there was also joy, more music, reconciliation and a return to his roots. Thus a man, not a myth emerges and that is so much more real and makes it even more astonishing that, alongside the rest of the group and their influences, Joe had such an enormous impact on so many.
The writer is scrupulously fair in dealing with the other members of the group and for the first time I had a real feel for what Mick brought to his band. To me he'd always been the singer of the 'wimpy' ballads who looked like he wanted to be Keef Richards, very much in the shadow of Joe, the spokesman for the group. I know differently now and can see what a generous and talented guy he is. The same spirit is displayed to Paul and Topper also.
With its insights into Joe's family, his ancestry, his friends, music and other influences, this book presents the real man who managed to escape the restraints of the past and came to realise how much he was loved and respected for himself and not just as part of The Clash.
To take a hero and avoid a hagiography, pointing out faults without judgement and to leave the reader as much in awe of the subject as before but with eyes now open, that's a fine achievement in anyone's book.
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22 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is Joe Public...speaking, 15 Nov 2006
Can't believe nobody has written a review yet!!
After many years of waiting..well it seemed like it..The Strummer biog hits the shelves...I was in two minds about this...yeah...I wanted to buy it because I'm a total clash head...but did I want to read it... a friend of mine said to me ...why do you want to read about bands and artists..it takes away all the mystery and "legend". Well..I've read all the others..so I guess I had to read this too. It kind of fills in a lot of the gaps...a more personal angle than the Marcus Gray Clash biog..it's written in a very "I was there" way..with contributions from people who were close ..which makes this different from the others.
I have to say there was a darker side to Joe than I imagined..he the man who faxed and then posted a personalised Birthday greeting to me ..a complete stranger after a mate of mine hassled Tricia to get this.
If you were the only other person in a tube carriage with Joe Strummer..what would you have said ? ...I couldn't speak...I was dumbstruck at the sight of seeing him there.
From a personal angle..there were parts of Joe that mirrored my own father..(Not drugs or booze !!) But the incredible work ethic ...and the heart problem. I remember when I heard Joe had died saying that I hoped it was nothing sordid....like drowned in a bath after a deadly cocktail of blah blah blah...I was relieved that it was not...am I sick..I don't know...but the book reveals that Joe was certainly caning it and burning the candle at boths ends most of the time.
Mr "Sandwich" has produced a really well written,well researched book which I don't think anyone will top.
Respect to The Clash, families and his friends and band mates for their honesty.
Top of your Christmas list..if you can wait that long
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