Dr. Feelgood's Jukebox, vol. 1

The world lost Wilko Johnson in 2022.  A tribute to Wilko's musical career was recently assembled by art58koen. Get it at The Good Old Major's Hole. A couple years ago, Stinky and I talked about featuring Wilko in our Gnarly Guitarists series, but art58koen's tribute is far better than anything I could have put together. 

Dr. Feelgood is a musical ship of Theseus which sails on without any of its original members.  Lee Brilleaux died almost 30 years ago.  Robert Kane has fronted the Feelgoods for the past two decades.  Brilleaux was a dedicated showman, and he might be well pleased to know that Dr. Feelgood continues to entertain and inspire audiences.

The Feelgoods are known for many fine original songs, written by Wilko and other band members.  But they also specialized lean & mean covers of R&B, rock, soul and blues songs.  Perfect candidates for this blog's Jukebox series, aka "Songs Someone Taught Us". Here's the first set, compiling the original versions of songs covered during Lee's tenure as head Doctor.  

Volume 1 starts in 1954 with "Riot in Cell Block #9" by the Robins, and continues through 1969.  I left out some of the better known artists that Dr. Feelgood covered (you've heard the Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters songs).  But there are still some heavy hitters (Bo Diddley, Howlin Wolf, John Lee Hooker), and more tunes that you may already know and love.