Response to his passing may have been swamped by the shock and horror of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, but make no mistake about it Lee Brilleaux was a hugely influential and much-loved figure. Together with fellow Dr. Feelgood members Wilko Johnson on Johnson, John B Sparks on bass and the wonderfully named drummer The Big Figure, Lee cut a swathe through the pomp of Prog Rock and the artifice of Glam, giving the kids a mid-70s Britain a taste of unaffected and authentic rhythm & blues whilst storming the charts and setting the stage for punk in the process.
Appearing out of Canvey Island (aka “Oil City”), Essex in 1971, Dr. Feelgood soon hit the thriving London pub rock scene and by late ’73 had turned it on its head. Previously the domain of country-rock loving former hippies like Brinsley Schwarz and Eggs Over Easy, the pubs - thanks to the Feelgoods - saw a return to the energy and music of a decade previous, when bands like the young Rolling Stones and Pretty Things were tearing up the tiny stages of the Crawdaddy Club and elsewhere. Dressed in ill-fitting suits and, soon enough, with brutally cut hair, the Feelgoods looked like a group of used car salesmen and small-time gangsters and impressed the young generation of pub goers with their sense of danger and no-bullshit authenticity. They became the unlikely cause célbre of the music press - who sensed a turning of the tide - and stormed the charts with their monochromatic and indeed recorded-in-mono first album Down By The Jetty in 1974.
Dr. Feelgood immediately redefined what pub rock meant in London, inspiring a new generation of bands including The 101’ers (fronted by a young Joe Strummer), The Count Bishops, Eddie & The Hot Rods and a bunch of suit-wearing R&B lovers named The Jam. Many on the American underground were hooked too; most famous is the story of a fledgling Blondie, whose drummer Clem Burke returned from London with a Feelgoods LP, which wowed everybody on the nascent New York scene, including the Ramones, with its starkness and directness.
The Feelgoods peaked commercially with the live album Stupidity which debuted at #1 in 1976, on the eve of punk rock’s ascent. A US tour, which saw them bizarrely open for the likes of Kiss, was something of a misfire, but they nonetheless helped fan the flames of fledgling punk scenes in Boston and elsewhere. Whilst the rise of The Sex Pistols and The Clash – and subsequently the departure of much-loved guitarist Wilko - lessened their impact moving forward, they were chart regulars at home for years to come with classic albums like Private Practice – with its lethal hit single “Milk & Alcohol” - and A Case of The Shakes.
Much loved by this time in Australia, thanks in particular to young radio stations like 3RRR, 2JJJ, and 4ZZZ, and having made converts of local bands including Radio Birdman and The Sports, Dr. Feelgood toured Australia for the first time in 1979. Of course, Australia’s pub scene was thriving at the time, and while the term “pub rock” here covered a much broader range of styles than what it had come to mean in the UK thanks to the Feelgoods, the band was rapturously received and played massive shows in pubs around Australia in 1979. They would return in 1984 and again later in the decade.
While their chart-dominating days were well and truly over, Dr. Feelgood, with Lee up front, never stopped playing and recording; their fanbase across the UK and Europe, in particular, was dedicated. Although the shock suicide of Kurt Cobain stole the headlines, Lee’s death of cancer at the age of 41 on 7 April 1994 was grieved by many, including of then-current members of the band who decided to honour Lee’s request to keep the band and the music alive. Dr. Feelgood, with no original members but with definite direct links to from Lee’s later line-ups continue to tour to this day. Books, including Will Burch’s Brilleaux: Rock’n’Roll Gentleman, and director Julien Temple’s acclaimed Dr. Feelgood documentary Oil City Confidential, have also served Lee’s memory well.
Of course, there’s no better way to remember the style and menace and exciting good times provided by Lee Brilleaux and Dr. Feelgood than to listen to the music and watch them in action. Here’s our pick of the great footage available (and you can, of course, listen to all the classic Feelgood stuff on your streaming services) followed by a clip of Lee and guitarist Gordon Russell with Donnie Sutherland on Channel 7’s Sounds in 1984.
