LIKE Little Richard's scream, Presley's leg shudder and Johnny Rotten's leer, Wilko Johnson's jerky, wild-eyed menace and pinballing across the stage sums up rock'n'roll as much as any classic chord pattern or hit track.

Throwing a lifeline to music fans in the '70s who needed a fix of no-fuss R&B tunes, amid acts in dresses and unending guitar solos, Dr Feelgood turned the heads of a young Paul Weller and of the best of the punk outfits, with frontman Lee Brilleaux and Wilko putting on a startling show at the height of their partnership.

Wilko only recently got to see what all the fuss was about, with the screening of Julien Temple's film, Oil City Confidential, which sees the lads take centre stage amid a cast of Canvey Island faces, car chases and loving footage of their childhood home.

In Julien's own words the band were "four estuarine John-the-Baptists to Johnny Rotten's anti-Christ".

Wilko plugs in at The Garage, Swansea, on Saturday (6 Feb)with his current crew Dylan Howe and Norman Watt-Roy. But he says seeing himself on screen with his original posse was an eye-opener.

"It was shown for the first time in October at The London Film Festival at the South Bank. I was there with my son, so it was nerve-wracking sitting beside him, wondering what I was going to come out with. But it was marvellous and the first time I had seen Dr Feelgood live. Seeing myself with Lee Brilleaux on the cinema screen was lovely. He was such a natural star."

The film treats the band as be-suited Essex Messiahs, thanks to Julian Temple's touching fandom, and Canvey Island becomes their Louisiana- The Thames Estuary their Mississippi delta. And just as London is the ever-present backbeat of The Small Faces and Madness there is geography in the Dr Feelgood sound, says Wilko.

"I think so, but it is hard to separate what is from what you later decide is, if you see what I mean. Looking back at how I got into music it was hearing the Stones and wanting to be like them, but it was the '60s and all teenagers wanted to be the Stones.

"The big influence on me was the blues, but I never wanted to write songs about riding a freight train. You can't write about Route 66 when you've got the B1014.

"So I wrote what I knew. Canvey was in there, it is just hard to say how." After seven years as Dr Feelgood's crowd-pulling guitar-player and a stint in his own band the Solid Senders, Wilko ended up in another outfit of charismatic ne'er-do-wells, The Blockheads.

"I was with The Blockheads for one album, and I don't think Ian Dury was at the happiest point in his life, but it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had in music." If their combination of a chippy frontman spouting sulphurous poetry, backed by the most light-footed, sophisticated players made for an arresting combination for listeners, they were stunning to play with, too, says Wilko. "Ian was out there giving it everything, and this band were so huge — it was like being on stage with a tribe of incredible players. Ian could be a very difficult man and there were terrible fights. But, by the end of it, we were usually laughing. I loved the guy. And wriiting with him was a gift. We co-wrote Superman's Big Sister. Well, he actually called me uip and sd said 'I've got this song..'I went over and read it and it was just there. Before he got past the first two lines I knew what I was doing with it. He wrote such incredible words and I'd never been able to work like that before."

Another old friend mourned, and more recently lost, is Mick Green, of The Pirates.

Wilko often credits Mick with turning his head as a guitar player, with that distinctive combined lead and rhythm technique. As a star-struck teen, Wilko collared him once for an autograph, but the only thing he had to hand was his school copy of A Winter's Tale, which he still has as a prized trophy. "I was just looking at it last night. It's hard to take in that Mick is gone. He was my hero and meeting him and getting to know him was lovely. Even though I was grown up and in Dr Feelgood and a guitar player, there was still that element of wonder. I would look at him sometimes when we were talking and think, 'My God, you're Mick Green'. I never lost that. Because it was the first piece of music that changed my world. I was walking across the room and I remember hearing the guy announce, 'This is Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, I'll Never Get Over You.' I heard that guitar sound and I stopped walking. I couldn't move. I spent the rest of my career trying to play like him."

Wilko and Feelgood notched up their own roster of admirers, but you might think it a little upsetting for him that Swedish soft-rock outfit Roxette named themselves after the Feelgood hit. Wilko accepts it with a sly smile. "No, I don't mind. When they were around, it meant I could call my friends and say, 'Listen, you know Roxette's back in the charts don't you?"

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