Dr. Feelgood still tours the world more than 50 years after forming, yet not a single original member is on stage. This episode asks what actually constitutes a band by tracing the group from its 1971 origins on Canvey Island, an industrial Essex landscape below sea level dominated by oil refineries. The original lineup of Lee Brilleaux on vocals, Wilko Johnson on guitar, John B. Sparko Sparks on bass and John The Big Figure Martin on drums took its name from a 1962 Willie Perryman record and its attitude from the bleak early 1970s UK, becoming the kings of a pub rock movement that rejected bloated stadium spectacle.

We break down Wilko Johnson’s choppy, pick-free guitar style that made one instrument sound like two, Brilleaux’s menacing delivery in a rumpled white suit, and the run from Down by the Jetty and Malpractice to the 1976 live album Stupidity, which entered the UK chart at number one. The episode covers the May 1976 Bottom Line show in New York where the Ramones opened for them, Johnson’s 1977 departure, Gypie Mayo’s arrival and the 1979 top 10 hit Milk and Alcohol, Brilleaux’s death from lymphoma in April 1994 at 41 and his mandate that the band continue, the 1995 reunion with Pete Gage, Robert Kane’s tenure from 1999, the 2022 album Damn Right, a stolen van in April 2024, and the annual Canvey Island memorial walks led by manager Chris Fenwick.

• How Canvey Island’s refineries and working-class grit shaped a British take on American R&B
• Why a live album beating polished studio pop to number one says so much about 1976
• The paradox of scoring their only top 10 single after losing their sonic architect
• Lee Brilleaux’s dying instruction and the Ship of Theseus question it raises
• Wilko Johnson’s 2022 passing and Sparko’s return to gigging in 2025