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" The legacy part is easy. The cross-pollination of music genres over the past two decades can be directly laid at the doorstep of Joe Strummer, lead singer of the Clash. His ability to make the political personal (check &amp;quot;Straight to Hell&amp;quot; for starters) has plenty of successors but no usurper. He dabbled in everything: rockabilly (&amp;quot;Brand New Cadillac&amp;quot;), reggae (&amp;quot;Rudie Can&amp;#039;t Fail&amp;quot;), rap (&amp;quot;The Magnificent Seven&amp;quot;), roots (&amp;quot;I Fought the Law&amp;quot;). He never adopted or accepted punk&amp;#039;s dress code or chord structure and never strayed into self-parody.  The life part is more complicated. Now that more than four years have passed since his sudden death of a congenital heart defect, there&amp;#039;s enough distance for author Chris Salewicz, a longtime friend of Strummer&amp;#039;s, to reflect on the man born John Mellor, who, in the immediate aftermath of his death, had rock &amp;#039;n&amp;#039; roll sainthood conferred upon him. In his epic, meticulously researched 600-page biography, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, Salewicz gives suitable attention to Strummer&amp;#039;s unquestioned rock stardom, but he also reports plainly on his mood swings, infidelity, and basic irresponsibility. He was a &amp;quot;sneaky fuck&amp;quot; (says a friend) who spent much of his post-Clash life drinking beer, taking Ecstasy, and, at least once, searching for a cigarette machine in a forest for seven hours after getting high. The book precedes the release of Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews at Sundance and hits U.S. theaters this fall. It&amp;#039;s all worthy attention for a man who epitomized what the rock star really is: someone unassailably cool but saddled with enough banal flaws to ward off envy and add even more to the myth. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a2929/strummer0607/>