Strummer was born John Graham Mellor in Ankara, Turkey, on 21 August 1952, the son of a Scottish mother and English father.

[3] At the age of nine, Strummer and his 10-year-old brother David began boarding at the City of London Freemen's School in Surrey and rarely saw their parents during the next seven years.

[6] The Vultures included three former members of Rip Off Park Rock & Roll Allstars, the original college band co-founded by Terry Earl Taylor.

He was a street performer for a while and then decided to form another band with his roommates called the 101ers,[1] named after the address of their squat at 101 Walterton Road in Maida Vale.

During this period, Strummer worked several occasional temporary jobs to fund the purchase of musical equipment, including time spent as a gardener in Hyde Park "to get the money for the guitar".

Strummer agreed to leave the 101ers and join Jones, bassist Paul Simonon, drummer Terry Chimes and guitarist Keith Levene.

[13] The band was named the Clash by Simonon and made their debut on 4 July 1976 in Sheffield, opening for the Sex Pistols at the Black Swan (also known as the Mucky Duck, now known as the Boardwalk).

Bernie Rhodes, the band's manager, pressured Strummer to do so because tickets were selling slowly for the Scottish leg of an upcoming tour.

[13] Topper Headon had earlier been kicked out of the band because of his heroin addiction, and Terry Chimes was brought back temporarily to fill his place until the permanent replacement, Pete Howard, could be found.

Joe wrote all the tabs in his meticulously neat hand on a long piece of paper which he taped to the top of the guitar so he could glance down occasionally when he was onstage."

He made a cameo appearance in Aki Kaurismäki's 1990 film I Hired a Contract Killer as a guitarist in a pub, performing two songs ("Burning Lights" and "Afro-Cuban Bebop").

One night of this tour was professionally recorded, and three tracks ("I Fought the Law", "London Calling", and "Turkish Song of the Damned") have seen release as b-sides and again on the Pogues' 2008 box set.

On 16 April 1994, Strummer joined Czech-American band Dirty Pictures on stage in Prague at the Repre Club in Obecni Dum at "Rock for Refugees", a benefit concert for people left displaced by the war in Bosnia.

After these self-described "wilderness years", Strummer began working with other bands; he played piano on the 1995 UK hit of the Levellers, "Just the One" and appeared on the Black Grape single "England's Irie" in 1996.

In 1997, while in New York City, he worked with noted producer and engineer Lee "Scratch" Perry on remixed Clash and 101ers reissue dub material.

In collaboration with percussionist Pablo Cook, Strummer wrote and performed the soundtrack to Tunnel of Love (Robert Wallace 1997) that was featured in the Cannes Film Festival in the same year.

Strummer and the band signed with Mercury Records, and released their first album in 1999, which was co-written with Antony Genn, called Rock Art and the X-Ray Style.

In November 2003, a video for "Redemption Song" was released, featuring graffiti artist REVOLT painting a memorial mural of Strummer on the wall of the Niagara Bar in the East Village of New York City.

[26] Strummer was instrumental in setting up Future Forests (since rechristened the Carbon Neutral Company), dedicated to planting trees in various parts of the world to combat global warming.

[15] At the Grammy Awards in February 2003, "London Calling" was performed by Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, Dave Grohl, Pete Thomas, and Tony Kanal in tribute to Strummer.

Bands that played were: Ari Up; Clem Snide; the Detachment Kit; Dirty Mary; Hammel on Trial; Jesse Malin; New Blood Revival; the Realistics; Eugene Hütz; Radio 4; Secret Army; Ted Leo; Vic Thrill & the Saturn Missile.

In February 2005 Cotswold Rail locomotive 47828 was named Joe Strummer by his widow Lucinda Tait at Bristol Temple Meads railway station.

A play by Paul Hodson called Meeting Joe Strummer premiered at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival, and toured the UK the following year.

[41] On-stage Strummer wires himself up into an inhuman dynamo of sweaty, trembling flesh, fearful enough to have one wondering when the ambulance brigade will rush to his rescue with a straitjacket.

[42] Boston punk rock band Street Dogs recorded a tribute song called "The General's Boombox" on their 2007 album State of Grace.

In 2012, marking 25 years of Childline (the free counselling service for children and young people in the UK), BT commissioned artists to design and decorate full-sized K6 red telephone box replicas, with Strummer featuring in an artwork titled "London Calling".

The album, which was overseen by Strummer's widow, Lucinda, and producer Robert Gordon McHarg III, features 32 songs, 12 of which had never been released.

[citation needed] After joining the Clash, the guitar's body and pickguard were refinished in grey auto primer and then painted black.

Years of heavy wear and taped on set lists remain on the guitar to this day, and the only known modifications to it included the installation of an individual, six-saddle bridge, and Fender "f-style" tuning machines.

is a 2004 one-hour music documentary, directed by Dick Rude, which follows Strummer touring in America and Japan with the Mescaleros and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, May 2004.