Paul Weller

Paul Weller (born John William Weller May 25, 1958 in Woking, Surrey, England, UK) is a British singer / songwriter who has been one of the biggest influences on British popular music for more than a quarter of a century, fronting two highly successful bands, The Jam and The Style Council. In the UK, he is recognised as something of a national institution, yet because much of his songwriting is rooted in British culture, he has remained essentially a national rather than an international star.

The Jam

Weller first burst onto the national music scene in 1977 with his first band, The Jam, which he had formed four years earlier as a teenager in Woking with his friends Rick Buckler (drums) and Bruce Foxton (bass). Weller himself took lead vocal duties and was a talented lead guitarist.

Related Topics:
1977 - The Jam - Rick Buckler - Drums - Bruce Foxton - Bass - Lead guitarist

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1977 was the year after the first wave of punk bands such as The Sex Pistols, The Buzzcocks and The Clash had arrived in the public eye. Although The Jam's music had much of the fire and the passion of those bands, in terms of song writing ability and lyrical content, The Jam were more in the mould of the so-called 'new wave' bands who came later on. Also, being just outside of London rather than in it, they were never really part of the tightly-knit and resentful punk clique, perhaps inspiring Weller's lines in The Jam's very first single In The City: "In the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you, but every time I approach you, you make me look a fool."

Related Topics:
Punk - The Sex Pistols - The Buzzcocks - The Clash - New wave - London

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nonetheless, The Clash were suitably impressed by The Jam to take them along as the support act on their White Riot tour of 1977. Politically, Weller was inspired by the left-wing stance of the senior band's Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, although the admiration does not seem to have been mutual. Indeed, in their song White Man (In Hammersmith Palais), Strummer sings "You think it's funny, turning rebellion into money" - a line aimed at The Jam, who The Clash regarded as being too commercial and not in the true spirit of the punk movement. The Jam went on to be far more successful, at least in terms of the singles charts, than The Clash in the UK.

Related Topics:
Joe Strummer - Mick Jones

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In The City took The Jam into the Top 40 for the first time in May 1977, although it would take another two years and eight singles before they were sufficiently engrained in the British national consciousness for The Eton Rifles to break the Top 10, hitting the No. 3 spot in November 1979.

Related Topics:
Top 40 - 1979

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

From then on their blend of pop tunes and politically-aware lyrics made them hugely popular, and in 1980 they hit No. 1 for the first time with what many believe to be the 'definitive' Paul Weller song - Going Underground, which was to become in effect the band's signature tune. A popular story has it that Going Underground hitting the charts at all was in fact an accident - allegedly, it was supposed to be only the B-side to Dreams of Children, a less-remembered song, but a mistake at a French pressing plant meant both songs were given 'A' status on the label so they had to be released as a double A-side. Whether this is true or apocryphal is unknown, but whatever the case, after Going Underground, The Jam - and Weller in particular - were UK superstars.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Weller was strongly influenced by 1960s bands such as The Kinks and The Who, both great favourites of his whose presence can be felt in much of The Jam's material. However, that did not mean that he was averse to finding inspiration in the works of many other artists: the Jam's second No. 1 single, Start! borrows heavily from The Beatles' Taxman, for example. The group's third No. 1, Town Called Malice, which has more recently found renewed fame on the Billy Elliott soundtrack, has a driving bass line very reminiscent of The Supremes' You Can't Hurry Love.

Related Topics:
1960s - The Kinks - The Who - The Beatles - Billy Elliott - The Supremes

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the early 1980s, The Jam were possibly the biggest band in Britain. They even had one single, That's Entertainment, that reached No. 21 in the UK charts despite not even being released in that country - it got there purely on the strength of the huge number of people buying import sales of the German single release. Weller, however, was eager to explore other musical avenues he felt he could not go down with The Jam. Later Jam songs such as The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow) - often described by critics as "a Style Council song pretending to be a Jam song" - showed that he longed to write in a perhaps more melodic, soulful style. He felt had taken The Jam as far as he could and was eager to move on.

Related Topics:
1980s - German - Style Council

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thus in late 1982, Weller shocked fans and the press - as well as his bandmates Buckler and Foxton - by announcing that The Jam were to disband at the end of the year. Their final single, Beat Surrender, became their fourth chart topper, going straight in at No. 1 in its first week, which was still very rare at the time, and their farewell concerts at Wembley Arena were multiple sell-outs.

Related Topics:
1982 - Wembley Arena

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~