'London calling to the faraway towns': How British music changed this American's life | Geoffrey Kabaservice

As a teenager in 1980s provincial Florida, I heard radio DJs dismiss punk as unlistenable garbage. Then I heard the Clash

As 2020 began, I was wandering the streets of London listening to the Clash. And as the flaming wreckage of this accursed year burns down to its last embers, I'm still thinking about the band and its lead singer, Joe Strummer (born John Graham Mellor), who died 18 years ago on 22 December aged 50.

Related: The Clash's London Calling reviewed - archive, 9 January 1980