Tom Dunne: Death of Rick Buckler a reminder of what a brilliant band The Jam were
The Jam in 1977: Rick Buckler, Paul Weller and Bruce Foxton. (Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage)
Rick Buckler’s passing is a bitter blow to music fans of a certain age. There were still many who thought that one day The Jam would perform again. That they could dust down their Parka jackets, jump on their Lambrettas and once again declare that ‘This is the Modern World’.
In a week when even Paul Simon announced that he is “unretiring” after a seven-year absence, Buckler’s death after a short illness, means that the Jam will be one of those rarest of things: a band were “never again” really meant “never again”.
It is hard to tell Buckler’s story without also telling that of The Jam. He was a school mate of Paul Weller's way back in 1972 in Woking, Surrey. A 14-year-old Paul initially played bass in that band. With Rick on drums, it made him one half of their first ever rhythm section.
Initially, Sheerwater secondary school’s finest was a covers band playing mostly Chuck Berry and Little Richard. However, when Paul discovered The Who’s ‘My Generation’ and the Mod movement, all bets were off. Paul moved to guitar, Foxton to bass and The Jam were formed.
The timing was perfect. Punk had just hit a reset button on the music industry. 'In the City', the Jam’s first single, with young earnest men in suits, arrived it seemed almost on cue. On its release, in May 1977, they immediately joined The White Riot Tour with The Clash, The Buzzcocks, The Slits and Subway Sect.
Young fans, such as myself, arrogantly declared that these bands were the future. It was crucial therefore that in this explosion of attitude, spitting and suspect clothing that a few genuine writers emerge. Otherwise, old men with beards predicting the soon return to the charts of other old men with beards might be proven right.
In this, it was obvious from very early on, that The Jam had something. Early singles might have been a little formulaic, but from the moment anyone heard ‘Down in the Tube Station’ or ‘English Rose’ it was clear that somewhere in the ranks of The Jam was a unique voice.
That voice was Weller. It’s odd to think that going onto record their third album there was still a belief that Foxton, on the strength of having written ‘News of the World’, might still be their main writer. Weller was struggling, hence the single David Watts, a Kinks cover.
And then he wrote ‘Tube Station’. In the years that followed Jam singles seemed to become events in themselves. ‘Eton Rifles ‘in Oct 1979 was imperious, but ‘Going Underground’ seemed to single handedly usher in the 1980s.
They could have stopped after the album in 1980. It was just so perfect. The single ‘Start’, with its Taxman bass line, seemed to declare The Jam to be our Beatles. ‘That’s Entertainment’ was era defining. It was our ‘A Day in the Life’, our ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’.
I think this is part of the reason why The Jam meant so much to so many of us. We’d stuck our necks our declaring “This is the future”. But now with words like “an amateur band rehearse in a nearby yard” bleeding from radios the world over, we’d been proven right.
“I told you they were good,” we’d said.
And what did Rick do in all this? He gave it his heart and soul, supported Paul when the label wanted to replace his dad as their manager, played perfect drums and looked wonderful. To paraphrase Roy Keane: he did his job.
He was devastated when Weller announced in mid 1982 that their next tour would their last. Paul got his dad to tell them. “It was like we were going to be driven over a cliff at the year’s end,” Rick later said. “We just kept hoping he would change his mind.” He didn’t. It is unclear if they ever spoke again.
Buckner played in a few bands subsequently, dallied in furniture design and restoration and wrote a great memoir, . He leaves a wife and two children, Jason and Holly.
But he also leaves an army of fans who think he was one third of the greatest band of the punk rock/new wave era. The band that wrote an anthem for our generation, made good on the promise and surpassed our wildest dreams. Eighteen top 40 singles, four number ones, six albums.
