Fans mourn  passing of the political man of punk

Within minutes of the announcement that Joe Strummer had dies aged 50 yesterday, one fan’s message to an inter net bulletin board neatly stated his legacy. "The Clash changed my life in a fundamental way. Their mixture of music and politics shaped my beliefs and tastes and made me the person I am today."

Bono, the Manic Street Preachers and Billy Bragg all became stars after they were inspired by Strummer, and each had a similar reaction to the news that the man who defined punk's political and musical radicalism had died from a suspected heart attack. He collapsed at his home in Broomfleld, Somerset, on Sunday afternoon and despite attempts by his wife, Lucinda, to resuscitate him, was dead by the time an ambulance arrived. A post-mortem examination is due to be held today. Strummer formed the Clash with guitarist Mick Jones and bassist Paul Simonon in 1976 after seeing the Sex Pistols and realising his pub rockers the lOl’ers were history. The drummer Tory Crimes (aka Terry Chimes) was soon replaced by Topper Headon. Strummer gave the band their political edge, adding confrontational lyrics to Jones's guitar arrangements, but the band's left-wing statements appeared to some to sit uneasily with Strummer's middle class background. The son of a diplomat, he was born John Graham Mellors in Ankara, Turkey, and was sent to a boarding school in Surrey before attending art school in London. But he dropped out and started busking with ukulele at Tube stations.

In 1999 he formed a new band, the Mescaleros, who released two albums and toured worldwide, playing a mixture of new material and Clash songs. Rumours of a Clash reunion were fuelled recently when Jones joined Strummer for an encore at a London concert in support of striking fire-fighters. Bono, the U2 front man who had been working with Strummer on a song for Nelson Mandela's Aids Awareness concert said: "The Clash was the greatest rock band. They wrote the rulebook for U2. It's such a shock." Billy Bragg said Strummer's latest records with the
Mescaleros were as "political and edgy" as the Clash releases, which showed it was Strummer who was the band's
"political engine. Without Joe there's no political Clash and without the Clash the whole political edge of punk would have been severely dulled," he said. Pat Gilbert, editor of the music magazine Mojo, said Strummer was a "wordsmith to compare with Bob Dylan" and one of the most important figures in modem British music. The Clash were to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year Another inter-net message illustrated the mood of fans yesterday. Quoted from a song by Aztec Camera, one of the many bands inspired by the Clash, it said: "The face of Strummer has fallen from the wall and nothing is left where it hung."