New bio of Joe Strummer looks pretty good.

[swag]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/057121178X/ref=pe_pe_5400_5544790_pe_snp_78X



The Publisher's Weekly blurb is a bit tepid, but says,

"In this biography of punk icon Joe Strummer, music writer Salewicz focuses on the heady days of the punk explosion and Strummer's long hiatus after leaving the Clash. Born John Graham Mellor in 1952 in Ankara, Turkey, to diplomat parents, Strummer enjoyed a peripatetic childhood before being parked at a British boarding school. An art school dropout, Strummer (who was known then as "Woody") lived a hand-to-mouth existence in London squats before rock impresario Bernie Rhodes selected him to head a new punk band, and Woody became Joe Strummer, the sardonic, gravelly voiced rabble rouser. For a long moment, the Clash channeled the most progressive elements in pop culture, blending punk anger, rasta vibes, bank robbers, cowboys and revolutionary traditions into music that remains compelling today. After the band's breakup in 1985, Strummer fell into a long depression that Salewicz attributes to heavy pot smoking and a family legacy that included his brother's suicide. Yet Strummer had revitalized his career and was making excellent music before his sudden death of heart failure in 2002. . . ."

Michael Azerrad, who, as some friends who have been subjects of his writings tell me, can be factually challenged, seems to like the book:

"God might be in the details, but as Redemption Song so vividly reveals, so is Joe Strummer, in all his flawed glory. As it turns out, the man who achieved the seemingly impossible -- he made punk rock noble -- was all too human. But as a wise man once said, 'The one who always strives can be redeemed.' That is the message of this remarkable book."