Paul Weller - The Changing Man
This is the other book I bought for this holiday week, Weller is a writer I have admired throughout his phases from The Jam, through The Style Council and into his re-emergence as a solo artist.
Being a fan of The Who it would be easy to try to make comparisons between hm and Pete Townshend. There is no doubt Townshend was a major influence on Weller but so were, to a greater or lessor extent, The Beatles, Steve Marriott, Ray Davies, The Sex Pistols the music of Motown and Stax and perhaps more surprisingly Dr Feelgood.
Weller found modernism at an early age with clothes and his appearance carrying more importance than the music he was listening to and about to write and play.
The main stay of the mod life soundtrack was american jazz and R&B and Weller found it hard to replicate this soind even allowing for admiration of The Small Faces and The Kinks from where he fine tuned his lyrical influences through songs steeped in that southern English framework.
Musically he was unable to find a musical direction which went beyond 60's parody, many believe it was his attendance at a Sex Pistlos gig in 1977 that gave him he inspiration to take The Jam forward, however, his real awakening came earlier in 1975 when he first saw Dr Feelgood live.
To him Wilko Johnson was a relelation both in dress sense and guitar technique, Weller lifted both the black suite, tie and white shirt image and the agitated guitar playing, this when added to his continuing admiration of 60's Who were the factors which gave birth to what became the early Jam brought together in their debut single "In The City" which was not only named after a Who single but also lifted the chorus lyric and tune.
Weller was too good a writer to be trapped in 60's revivalism and equally he was too good and sensible to be cornered in the punk explosion, whilst the second album was one too soon by 1978's "All Mod Cons" he had musically progressed way beyond punk and whist still tipping his hat to his 60's influences and wearing his mod ethos on his sleeve he had created his first masterpiece, and for me his best ever album
.
The Quadropenia film came out in 1979 and acted as a main stream catalyst for the mod revival scene, however, having been there already Weller moved on and "Setting Sons" provided great commercial succes and the "Going Underground" single broke all records.
By 1980 "Sound Affects" Weller was finding new strengths in his songwriting and although the lead single "Start" was "Taxman" by The Beatles it remains one of my all time favourites as the soundtrack to the Summer of '80.
"The Gift" album was released in 1982 and turned out to be The Jam's last studio album. Weller beieved that to progress musically he would have to break up The Jam, doing so at their peak was a brave decision but he realised that musically the other members and fan base wouldn't be able to move on up with him.
Comparisons can again be made with Pete Townshend, after Moon's death in 1978 Townshend had the option to do likewise close down The Who at the top and move on......Townshend chose not to do so showing loyalty to the remaining members of the group and the numerous other people close to him who relied on The Who for a living.
The Who carried on but Townshend's best writing emerged via his solo albums, it is only since 1999 that The Who recovered their fire as a live act and whilst their recent album "The Endless Wire" has some highlights one can't help wondering what direction Townshend would have gone if he had been totally released from the responsibities of The Who.
As for Weller The Style Council was born into the mire of mid 80's "pop" and new romantics. The new Weller image was based on the continental modernists and visually and musicall most Jam fans just didn't believe he could leave behind such a band for this.
Now for me The Style Council were lokked i that period and whilst not reaching the heights of The Jam they did produce the odd good track.
As the 80's drew to a close The Style Council audience diminished and their last album was turned down by the record company. Weller needed a break and needed to find the writer in him all over again.
His first solo album "Into Tomorrow" released in 1992 received a lukewarm reception, however a year later came "Wild Wood" and Weller was back in the limelight via great reviews and health sales.
"Stanley Road" followed in 1995 featuring "The Changing Man" Weller was now "The Modfather" the key influence on Brit-Pop with everyone from Oasis to Blur citing him as a main influence.
Several albums followed and now we have Paulo Hewitt's bography, Hewitt was a buddng music journalist when he first met Weller, a close friendship developed and Hewitt wrote a biography on The jam but in 2006 their friendship came to a bitter end after, now I have yet to read the full book so the true reason still eludes me but the circumstances echo with me in my own experiences.
The last word if from Weller's latest album "22 Dreams" an ambitious double album which stretches across many styles....where he goes now only he knows.
