Page 9 - Rolling Stone - India (December 2019)

The Mix

DEATH OR GLORY REVOLUTION
The Clash onstage ROCK
in 1979. They toured This promo poster
the world while was created by Ray
writing the LP, which Lowry, who also
inspired its global designed the album
sound. cover.

How the Clash Made

‘London Calling’

The Clash were on
their first U.S. tour LIVE FR0M
in 1979 when Joe Strummer NEW YORK
scribbled down lyrics about The cover shot of
a coming Armageddon. “The the album was
USA is sinking,” he wrote. taken at this con-
“The Ice Age is coming.” It cert.
was the first draft of “London
Calling,” the title track of AT THE PALLADIUM
the band’s career-defining The Clash, (from left) Mick
album. The group’s surviving Jones, Joe Strummer, and
members are celebrating its Paul Simenon perform at the
40th anniversary with The Palladium in New York,1979.
London Calling Scrapbook,
packed with images TANNENBAUM/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF CASBAH PRODUCTIONS LLC; ©
of rare artifacts CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF CASBAH PRODUCTIONS LLC;
from the era. © RAY LOWRY; COURTESY OF CASBAH PRODUCTIONS LLC; ALLAN
“I’m quite
amazed by
how much KEY INFLUENCE THE ICE AGE
Joe saved,” “Brand New Strummer’s draft
says Robert Cadillac,” by Vince of “London Call-
Gordon Taylor, was a Clash ing” with alternate
McHarg, who favorite, and the lyrics like “The sun ACE RECORDS
assembled the first song they cut is blinking while
book. ANDY GREENE for London Calling. I’m drinking.”

gest stars in country music right now. The burly FAST FACTS makes people go, ‘Oh, I can never be like that
LUKE COMBS singer-songwriter — who performs in an over- THE OUTSIDERS guy.’”
size fishing shirt and a baseball hat — has scored Combs once Combs didn’t grow up thinking he would
he country music that Luke Combs loved six Number One singles in the past three years, bought an Eric ever be a musician. He picked up a guitar for
as a kid growing up in North Carolina in including the undeniable stomper “Beer Never Church signa- the first time at 21 years old, when he was
T the Nineties may not be considered the Broke My Heart.” His debut album, This One’s ture guitar. Now, attending North Carolina’s Appalachian State
coolest by today’s standards: Instead of outlaw for You, just matched Shania Twain’s record- Church is a friend University, the same school that one of his more
and collaborator.
music or alt-country, he was a big fan of main- setting 50 weeks at Number One on the country recent heroes, Eric Church, graduated from. But
stream Nashville hitmakers Brooks and Dunn, charts. While many of his Nashville peers are ex- GRAND HONOR starting late didn’t hurt Combs: “I was writing
Combs was
Garth Brooks, and Clint Black. “I’d love to lie to perimenting with hip-hop and electronic beats, recently inducted from the second I was good enough at guitar to
you so people would think I was cool and say I Combs embraces the big hooks of the Nineties into the Grand do it,” he says. “It wasn’t based on anything. I
was listening to Merle Haggard when I was 10, powerhouses he admires — while adding his own Ole Opry. “It never realized how much time folks spend on
but I wasn’t,” Combs says. sense of easygoing relatability. “I don’t think there doesn’t feel real,” trying to figure out what their sound is. I had
Combs’ ability to channel that unabashed is a wall between me and my audience,” Combs, he said. that from the first two or three songs I wrote.”
populism has helped make him one of the big- 29, says of his success. “There’s not anything that He formed a band, and it played “any bar that

December 2019 | Rolling Stone | 9