4.52am Issue: 011 4th December 2016

to go and check it out. Got rid of me
quick smart, I’m not joking.
But there have been others too – Chris
Spedding, the man who shares Johnny’s
middle-name – Chris Fucking Spedding
- was at pains to tell me about playing
with Johnny with Roxy Music. Not that he
was impressed by playing with Roxy
Music, and to be totally honest when you
read the Chris Spedding interview soon
you’ll realise that he has quite literally
played with everybody – all of them. You
name it. But Johnny Marr, there was a
pause and a recognition of something
special. The same with all of them.
So when I sat down to read Johnny’s
autobiography Set The Boy Free despite
being aware of The Smiths and loving
them thanks to John Peel in my
Birmingham bedroom since Hatful of
Hollow I really didn’t know what to
expect, the guy is clearly something
special but what could it be that
generated this kind of respect in those
sort of people? I mean, I haven’t got to
speak to Nile Rogers yet and Johnny
respects him, so I hate to think what he
would say.
And reading the book, through the story
of The Smiths who without a doubt are
the greatest band the world has ever
seen, never mind British band, and then
the ridiculous list of bands and sessions
he has played on and with since, the key
to it all for me is that there is no
compromise. Whatever he does is
special because whatever he does
matters to the nth degree and his level of
honesty, of self-worth is way above most
other artists out there. It has become a bit
of a cliché that Johnny has always gone
out of his way to make life difficult for
himself. His chords he inverts until they
hurt, his guitars are chosen to limit him so
that he has to find new pathways, an
almost self-mending neural approach,
forces himself to answer new questions
and find answers nobody else realised
were even needed. Don’t even think
about offering him your Blues Scale,
there’d be blood on the walls.
And so he wanders, he creates the best
band ever, writes the best songs ever –
so he splits the band and dissolves the
writing partnership. He works as a
session man, but only a fool gives him his
lines to play, it doesn’t work like that. And
now he is finally out and about with a cool
band once more what is the motivation?
To be the best, to be the best live band
out there, and he does it again. Because
that is what Johnny Marr is, he is a
perfectionist looking for his next
challenge, whether it is improvising in a
darkened room with Jansch and Butler, or
walking cold into sessions that others
would freak over, he is the best and
always will be because there simply isn’t
anybody else like him and there never
has been. Never can be again.
He is Johnny Fucking Marr, and you had
better not forget it.
Buy Set The Boy Free Here it is, without
a doubt, the story of genius.