And cutting and pasting essentially Tony Parsons' entire column from the UK Mirror today:
Joe was not the most famous rock star – but he was the best.
If you came of age in the Seventies, his death meant as much as losing John Lennon – an unbearable loss, leaving a gap that would never be filled.
Because Joe was unique.
Punk’s great humanitarian, he never stopped believing that the music had the power to change individual lives, and that those lives had the power to change the world.
As he got older, his idealism only increased, and his fire burned still brighter.
I knew him before he had a record deal and I saw him just before he died.
And in my entire life I never met anyone with a bigger heart than Joe Strummer.
“Without people, you’re nothing,” he once said.
May bloggers (or whatever they will be called) write about this mural on Seventh Street and Avenue A years and years from now... Meanwhile, Alex has this to say today about Joe at Flaming Pablum.
Also, East Village Radio has a great archived two-hour program on the co-founder of The Clash. Find East Village Radio here.
And a favorite, circa 1982...