Wilko Johnson, Dr. Feelgood guitarist and ‘Game of Thrones’ actor, dead at 75
He started with drums and piano when he was 4, and was playing in a gospel group by the time he was 12.
He left home at 18 and formed one of the first rock and roll bands in England.
When he made it back to the States, he formed a band with two guitarists, Jim Peterik and Tommy Dickson.
“We worked out on this song called ‘My World’ and decided we’d have a lot of fun playing together,” Johnson told Rolling Stone in 2013. “The song sounded really corny, so we just went in and cut the recording and stuck with it and worked it into a great song.”
He also performed with an early version of Led Zeppelin.
He went on to form his own band and recorded some of his first songs when he was in his 20s.
But it was when he was in his 30s that he met his future wife.
That’s when he was introduced to his future wife, Diana Ross, who would later become his fiancée and manager.
“He was a man who I had to work with, but he didn’t work that hard to take me places,” Diana Ross said in a 2016 profile. “It was one day on the road, he told me, he said he had something to say and he was ready to go to rehearsal. He said, ‘Don’t forget, honey, when we’re up there, you gotta be ready.'”
According to People, Johnson came up with the name “Game of Thrones” while waiting for the bus to take him to his first rehearsals with the Grateful Dead.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Johnson said: “‘Game of Thrones,’ I thought, ‘It’s perfect, it’s got some good rhythm and the ‘Thurs’ in it. This was something we could work with.’ So I just put an X on the top of it, changed it to [Go]T, and threw