Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing

history of new music early and ad-free on Amazon music, included with Prime.

When Joe Strummer died on December 22, 2002, nobody could believe it.

First of all, a guy was only 50.

Second, this was a guy who ran marathons.

And third, he'd been a strict who ran marathons.

And third, he'd been a strict vegetarian since 1971.

And fourth, it was Joe Strummer, one of the toughest and most uncompromising musicians in the history of not just punk, not just alternative, but rock, period, full stop.

Yet it happened in his kitchen in Somerset, England, just after he finished walking the dog. Cause a death? A heart attack

caused by an undiagnosed defect in his heart that had been there all along. Sudden heart

failure. He immediately lost consciousness and never woke up. To be specific,

he suffered from an intramural coronary artery. This is when one of the main vessels supplying

blood to the heart ends up growing inside the heart muscle as the person grows older. It is an

exceedingly rare condition with fewer than 100 fatal cases recorded

worldwide in the last 50 years. That's what took Joe from us? What are the odds? Well, I guess I

just told you. But even though Joe has been gone for 20 years now, he still remembered and still revered as an iconic figure, and someone whose work has been discovered by generations since he died.

To help that along, and to commemorate 20 years since his passing, I've come up with something I call 20 short stories about Joe Strummer.

This is the ongoing history of new music podcast with Alan Cross.

The wheat is going to take a nuclear error, but I have no fear, Because London is drowned and I

I live by the river

Joe Strummer and the Clash

With the title track of London Calling

...