Ten Years In An Open Neck Shirt

John Cooper Clarke TV documentary from 1982 directed by Nick May and produced for the Arts Council of Great Britain and Channel 4. This is a must.

The documentary features interviews and performances by JCC and also appearances from peer and ‘crucial’ Jamaican British poet and social activist during the late 70s and 80s, Linton Kwesi Johnson – the great man who penned and performed classics like Sonny’s Lettah, Inglan Is A Bitch, Reggae Fi Dada and Reggae Fi Peach; and who wrote features for the magazines, NME, Melody Maker and Black Music.

LKJ was, and is, a politically inspirational character, a spokesperson and voice for the under-represented black population in the UK – particularly African-Caribbean people and the social and economic inequality experienced by those communities exemplified by the many riots in London and elsewhere in the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His recorded material from the era, mostly engineered by Dennis Bovell, is essential especially his first four LPs on Island Records. Seek them out.

Over and above lots of chat and live performance from the aforementioned punk poet and the dub poet and some footage of a handful of boorish, copycat, flash-in-the-pan Northern poets of the time, there’s also a bizarre interview piece with Dutch poetic wordsmith Jules Deelder.

And, the real standout scenes of the film are some stylishly desolate and vivid cinematic representations of Cooper Clarke’s poetry with musical accompaniment from the Invisible Girls – Health Fanatic and Beasley Street to name a couple of our favourites that feature throughout.

This was first shown on Channel 4 in 1982 and a book of poetry and pictures (illustrated by Steve Maguire) with the same title came out the following year which you can pick up for in the region of £100.00 from Amazon and Fleabay. Incidentally, the images on this post are all taken from the very book other than Kwesi Johnson’s Bass Culture album sleeve from 1980.

It’s a massively entertaining hour of telly and, as we say, an absolute must particularly for fans of Cooper Clarke and Manchester post-punk goings on. Those fans may also be interested in this article we posted a month or two back on the John Cooper Clarke Directory which was produced with graphic designer Barney Bubbles in 1979.

Racket Racket on Vimeo.

Find out more about the man behind the hairstyle on the John Cooper Clarke website.