Ray Lowry RIP.

Some sad news: the artist/illustrator Ray Lowry has died. I like his work a lot.

A brief interlude: early this year I was surprised to receive an e-mail from offering congratulations for "your Clash book". What Clash book?, I wondered. It turned out that some DVD sleevenotes I had written for a Clash documentary made by a (it turned out) highly unscrupulous company who have already ripped off a number of writer colleagues had been re-packaged as part of a book about The Clash. Having not even been informed by the company that they were recycling my words, I was initially pissed off - until I saw a copy of the book, that is, which was actually based on the sketches Ray Lowry did as "war correspondent" for The Clash at the height of their career - touring the US promoting London Calling. Sketches I had already spent many an hour marvelling over over the past decade or so.

I was pleased just to be sharing the same pages with such amazing work and with the co-author (along with Johnny Green) of A Riot Of Our Own Night And Day With The Clash - still, in my opinion, one of the best rock 'n' roll read out there, a book I read and then re-read while drinking vodka in my squat in South London, circa 1997, and many times since. It's a great book. And who cares about money anyway when you're involved in something creative and exciting.

Ray's book for which I provided some words is called The Clash: Rock Retrospectives - I definitely recommend reading it for Ray Lowry's (who I never got to meet) masterful, spirited drawings.

Visit Ray's site here.