Good Morning all, it’s a lovely cloudy almost chilly morning here. Reminds me of October in West London – a nice cup of tea and a bacon sandwich would complete the illusion for me. As I mentioned earlier Richard Norris had contacted me about this time working with Joe Strummer before and during the making of Rock Art and the X-Ray Style. Norris has an extensive musical history himself which you should check out including many albums as The Grid (with Dave Ball from Soft Cell) and has new material out this year. The Time and Space Machine is the most recent venture – learn/hear a lot more on his myspace page. His exact comments are reproduced below and valuable insight into that crucial time that brought Strummer back into the limelight.

I will gladly give you any information you like about the time I worked with Joe. We worked together for a very short period, somewhere between a year and 18 months. In this time we remixed Black Grape, worked on a track for a Jack Kerouac tribute album, worked with Black Grape at Real World studios on ‘England’s Irie’, recorded a track (‘Boom N’ Bust’) for Japanese ‘Mystery Train’ actor Masatoshi Nagase, recorded music for the film Grosse Point Blank in the UK and LA, and wrote and recorded a number of original songs.

These included ‘Yalla Yalla’ ‘Diggin’ The New’ ‘War Cry’, ‘Sandpaper Blues’ and ‘The Road To Rock and Roll’. The tracks we produced that appear on the album are pretty much just as we recorded them, with a few minor overdubs.

I think it is perhaps unfortunate to be represented as someone who worked on and off with Joe for years and didn’t get it together, and thank goodness Ant came along and rescued the project.

It took a lot of persuasion, encouragement and late night sessions to record these tracks with Joe. Gradually he became ready to work as part of a live band again, and I’m glad to have been involved in helping him get to that stage. I don’t think the album would have been possible without this groundwork.

My sincere thanks go to Richard Norris as (like so much that surrounds Strummer in the 90′s) not a great deal has really been documented about this time period with regards to Strummer. Some quotes I just revisited suggested he retreated into himself and lacked the confidence to play and record again. While others maintain he never stopped working but was unsure as to the best method of getting a band back together.

What can’t be denied (in my opinion) is that the tracks that Richard wrote with Joe as mentioned above were superb and helped greatly in getting Strummer back on the map musically. I think that ‘Yalla Yalla’ is one of Joe’s greatest recorded moments and every time I hear it I’m filled with something very raw and powerful. A song of hope and spirit – something very tangible.

Thanks again to Richard for getting in contact. I’ve always maintained that the blog is my humble opinions and they become that much more useful with the contributions of others. Censorship is out of the picture!!

Tim