The band’s debut album, ‘Down by the Jetty (1974)’, was recorded abruptly and live in the studio, and its follow-up, ‘Malpractice’ (also 1974), had a similar spiky, malevolent energy. Their music was similarly unique, combining Brilleaux’s rasping sneer of a vocal, Johnson’s trademark jerky guitar and the thunderous rhythm section into a huge, but primal and menacing sound. In the progressive rock era of the mid 1970s, they looked like nobody else, wearing short, brutally cut haircuts and cheap, hand-down suits. Sparks (bass) and John “The Big Figure” Martin. ‘Oil City Confidential’, which takes its name from the huge oil refinery towers that dominate the landscape of Canvey Island, through a mixture of new and old interviews, rarely seen live footage and documentary film of the era, captures Dr Feelgood’s rise and then its fall as vocalist Lee Brilleaux and Johnson fell out.Īs well as Brilleaux, who died of cancer at the age of 41 in 1994, and Johnson, Dr Feelgood also consisted of two other Canvey Island locals, John B. He was the director of both the Sex Pistols films, ‘The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle’ (1979) and ‘The Filth and the Fury’ (2000), and had also made a documentary about Joe Strummer, ‘The Future is Unwritten’ (2007), as well as a comedy fantasy musical, ‘Earth Girls Are Easy’ (1988). Temple had also made several other music films. As punk took off, they found themselves relegated out of music history books.įilmmaker Julien Temple’s 2009 documentary film about Dr Feelgood, ‘Oil City Confidential’, has done much to restore the band’s reputation, and made an unlikely late star out of Johnson. Their early fans included both Joe Strummer and John Lydon, but their original line-up broke up at the height of their success in 1977 when their songwriter and guitarist Wilko Johnson was fired from the band.

The group, who formed in the faded Essex holiday resort of Canvey Island in 1971, were the missing link between rhythm and blues and punk. Dr Feelgood’s influence was for thirty years largely forgotten.

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