Facing cancer, Wilko Johnson tunes up for the ultimate farewell tour

The R&B guitarist Wilko Johnson is preparing for a farewell tour having been diagnosed with cancer John Bungey - The Times Last updated at 12:01AM, January 22 2013 The doctor said, Youve got cancer. I was absolutely calm. And then later I began to feel almost euphoric In the febrile world of showbusiness, farewell tours are common enough. They are undertaken by artists of a certain age planning to spend more time with their grandchildren, the golf course, or perhaps the contents of their wine cellar. Sometimes the warm rush of approbation, and consequent ticket sales, are so impressive that the performer will become mildly addicted. Kiss, the Eagles and Streisand have all been accused of never quite being able to say goodbye. But there is nothing optional about the farewell gigs soon to be undertaken by Wilko Johnson, one of Britains greatest rhythm and blues guitarists, whose former group, Dr Feelgood, were, for a heady year or so in the mid-1970s, just about the biggest band in the land. Johnson, 65, has terminal cancer of the pancreas and last week announced that he would not be undergoing chemotherapy. Tickets for four last shows in March to say thank you to the fans went on sale yesterday three of which have already sold out and an extra London date has been added.

In the rocknroll business this is surely the first time that an artist has signalled so starkly that there can be no encores. And yet the tall, thin gent in black T-shirt and jeans splayed on an armchair in his yellow, crenellated house in a suburb of Southend, Essex, has none of the air of a condemned man. He laughs: Apart from a touch of cancer, Im fine. Physically, none of the symptoms have started yet. The specialist told me I may have four or five months before they kick in. I had the analysis just before Christmas, and I dont know if the guy was an expert in telling people bad news but he said those words, Youve got cancer, and I was absolutely calm. I didnt freak out at all. I mean, Ive always been a miserable bugger but I felt OK and then later I began to feel almost euphoric, and the strange thing is that the feeling hasnt worn off. I realise that all the things that I usually worry about dont matter. He says he has refused chemotherapy because, at most, it would offer only another three poor-quality months of life and that didnt seem like a good deal. On the coffee table in front of us, next to the chess set and the Russian dolls, is a pile of letters from Japanese fans, where news of the illness emerged during recent dates. Its funny, I never realised I had touched people so personally. Theyre very moving, the ones in broken English are the most heartbreaking. Wed finish the gigs with me singing Bye Bye Johnny and I was waving at the fans and they were waving and it should have been sad, but it was great. He laughs: Terminal cancer is in many ways a good thing for a show-off. Its an illness, though, that has stalked his adult life: carrying off the lead singer of the Feelgoods, Lee Brilleaux; his chum and bandmate Ian Dury; and, eight years ago, his beloved wife Irene, whom he says he still thinks of every day. Oh God, that was terrible. Wed been together for 40 years. She was so brave, she never once complained. But Johnson insists its been a good life. Growing up on Canvey Island in Essex, an odd blend of East End holiday resort and oil refinery grime, he found fame playing choppy lead and rhythm chords with Dr Feelgood. They wore thin-lapelled suits and played a lean, spare rhythm and blues that had a raw excitement that made the loonpanted denizens of prog rock suddenly look very old-fashioned indeed. Future members of the Sex Pistols, the Jam and Madness all came and mentally took notes. In New York, Blondie wore out the grooves on an import copy of Down By the Jetty, the Feelgoods debut album. And regularly stealing the show was the frenzied, bug-eyed Johnson and his red and black Fender Telecaster with tunes that transposed Chicago blues to the south Essex badlands.

Soon they were the band of the moment: at a residency at the Kensington pub in West London (he hates the term pub rock) a pre-Charles Lady Di and the author John Mortimer were regulars, though he remembers neither. When the Feelgoods live album,Stupidity, went to No 1 in the UK and they began to tour the States, a Stones-like future of stadium glory briefly seemed to beckon. But Johnson, sole songwriter, rowed violently with the other three (I could be a moody so and so). He says he was thrown out; the band put it about that he quit voluntarily. Ive played ever since either with my own band or with Ian Dury. I mean, what else could I do? But the career was always an accident, we were a little local band, we just happened to be very good. Originally I wanted to be a poet. In fact The Spectator published one of my old poems, from 1968, the other day Get Your Kicks on the B1014 I was delighted. So not only am I a published poet but I was talking to my son, who lives in the Philippines, and on the news there they described me as Game of Thrones actor Wilko Johnson. So I can add actor to my tally. I played an executioner in one or two shows I had to look daggers at people then cut their heads off. And it was great because I was mute, so didnt have to learn lines ... So actor, poet, musician. Not bad. Theres an erudite range of domestic interests too. On the flat roof of the house is a dome enclosing a large telescope. Johnson spends hours up there, gazing at the heavens and hopes to see the rings of Saturn one last time this year. He studied English at Newcastle University and took a course in old Icelandic and is one of the few English people who can read the ancient sagas in the original. He loves Shakespeare and Marlowe and can rare for an electric guitarist quote speeches from Tamburlaine. Julien Temple, who made a film about him and the Feelgoods in 2009 called Oil City Confidential, has called him one of the great English eccentrics. But Johnson is stoical about leaving all this behind. And as an atheist he is certainly not expecting life ever after. If you asked me how I feel about knowing its over, I would say that sometimes Ive been feeling truly happy for the first time in my life. When we were in Japan we went to this temple in Kyoto and the scene with the mountains behind was sublime. A light snow was falling and the scene was utterly beautiful. Normally Id be trying to take this in as a memory. But I thought theres no point, so I was just in that moment completely and I felt fantastic. Its time to go and, as the photographer and I leave, we notice the graffiti that Johnson has scrawled on the inside of his garden wall Viva, an anarchist symbol, then Venceremos. Yes, thats my bourgeois rebellion, laughs Johnson, only I can see it ... Yeah, Venceremos, we will overcome. Well, maybe not this time.

Wilko Johnson performs four farewell concerts: London Koko (March 6 and 10 (extra date), Bilston Robin 2 (March 7), Holmfirth Picturedrome (March 8), Glasgow O2 ABC (March 9). More gigs may be added if his health permits. Tickets: 0844 4780898, thegigcartel.com. Further info:wilkojohnson.org

Wilko Johnson plays at the Hammersmith Palais, 1976