John Joseph Wardle (born 11 August 1958), known by the stage name Jah Wobble, is an English bass guitarist and singer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; he left the band after two albums.
Following his departure from PiL, he developed a solo career. In 2012, he reunited with fellow PiL guitarist Keith Levene for Metal Box in Dub and the album Yin & Yang. Since 2013, he has been one of the featured pundits on Sunday morning's The Virtual Jukebox segment of BBC Radio 5 Live's Up All Night with Dotun Adebayo. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Geezer, was published in 2009.
Wobble co-wrote and contributed bass and drums to PiL's second album Metal Box,Memoirs of a Geezer. pp 108-112 which was released in 1979. He grew increasingly frustrated by the lacklustre creative atmosphere in the band, which he felt stifled his artistic ambitions and PiL's creative potential.Memoirs of a Geezer. pp 101-104 Besides differences in artistic vision, further conflicts were brought on in part by heavy drug and alcohol abuse in the band. Wobble then recorded his debut album The Legend Lives On... Jah Wobble in "Betrayal", making unauthorised use of material from Metal Box for which he was fired from PiL in late 1980.
In 1983, Wardle appeared on the LP Snake Charmer billed as a co-leader alongside guitarist The Edge of U2, Czukay, Liebezeit, and producer François Kevorkian.
Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart was formed in 1982. The original line-up was Ollie Marland on keys (who went on to become Tina Turner's musical director), Annie Whitehead on trombone, Neville Murray on percussion and a musician named only as Cliff, on drums. By 1983 Lee Partis was the drummer. Trumpeter Harry Beckett and pedal steel player B. J. Cole regularly performed with the group.
By 1985 Jah Wobble's heavy drinking and drunken brawls were having an effect on his life. Halfway through the recording of the album Psalms (October 1986), Wobble stopped drinking. From then through to the present day he has remained 'clean and sober'.
He then did a variety of , whilst continuing to perform and record his music in what spare time he had. These jobs included a long stretch with the London Underground. In an oft-quoted tale, it is related that he once, at Tower Hill Underground Station via the public address system, regaled commuters with the deadpan announcement, "I used to be somebody. I repeat, I used to be somebody."
By 1987, due to the repeated prompting of his friend and former bandmate, percussionist Neville Murray, Wobble reformed The Invaders of the Heart. Armed with a live recording of a concert he had made with a new line-up of musicians during a European tour in 1988, Wobble travelled to New York City's New Music Seminar in 1989 to get back into the music industry. Wobble was able to secure an eleventh-hour record deal with a small European record label.[2] The live album, Without Judgement, was recorded in the Netherlands and was released in November 1989.
Following the relative success of Without Judgement, Wobble has collaborated with many musicians - Brian Eno among them - & his explorations into world music predated much of the genre's popularity. Wobble hit his commercial peak with 1991's Rising Above Bedlam. While the album did not chart, it spawned four singles including his first top-40 hit, Visions of You, featuring Sinéad O'Connor. Jah Wobble's 1994 album Take Me to God was influenced by world music genres and contributions from a variety of artists of diverse cultural backgrounds, including Baaba Maal, Dolores O'Riordan, and Chaka Demus, and was also a critical and commercial success.
Wobble was part of the industrial music supergroup The Damage Manual, which formed in 2000 and consisted of Wobble on bass alongside former PiL and Killing Joke drummer Martin Atkins, Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker, and vocalist Chris Connelly (who had previously worked with Atkins as part of two other industrial music supergroups, Pigface and Murder Inc., the latter of which also featured Walker). He appeared on the group's self-titled debut album as well as the EP One, both of which were released on Atkins' Invisible Records label, but subsequently left the group after declining to participate in their tour of the U.S.
A collaboration with his wife, the Chinese-born guzheng player Zi Lan Liao, was entitled Chinese Dub.[3] He also performed at the 2008 Rhythm Festival.
Jah Wobble and the Chinese Dub Orchestra won the Cross-Cultural Collaboration category, for their album Chinese Dub, in the inaugural Songlines Music Awards, announced on 1 May 2009, which were the new world music awards organised by the UK based magazine, Songlines.
In September 2009, John Lydon reformed PiL for a series of concerts in late 2009. Despite Lydon's invitation to join, Jah Wobble did not feature in the line-up, since he considered the wages offered insufficient and disagreed with the choice of venues.
At an impromptu appearance at the Musicport Festival in Bridlington Spa on 24 October 2010, where they were joined by vocalist "Johnny Rotter" of the Sex Pistols Experience, Wobble renewed his association with former PiL guitarist Keith Levene.
In 2011, Wobble collaborated with Julie Campbell, alias Warp Records artist LoneLady in a project called Psychic Life. The debut album, Psychic Life, was inspired by disco, post-punk and psychogeography, and released by Cherry Red Records on 14 November 2011. Keith Levene contributed to three tracks on the album. A digital-only Extended play, Psychic Life, fronted by the song "Tightrope", was released in October 2011.
In early 2012, after some planned Japan gigs were cancelled because of visa issues, Wobble and Levene played various UK clubs as Metal Box in Dub. The visa issues were resolved and they played Fuji Rock festival in July 2012. This was followed by the release of a four-song, eponymous EP. An album entitled Yin & Yang was released in November 2012.
Wobble has also collaborated with the British ambient group Marconi Union, the results of which were released as an album called Anomic on 30 Hertz records in June 2013. In October 2013, 30 Hertz Records released Odds & Sods & Epilogues, an illustrated book/CD of Jah Wobble's poetry.
In 2015, Cherry Red Records released Redux, a six-CD box set that spans nearly four decades of Wobble's music. It includes new tracks Merry Go Round and Let's Go Psycho. In May 2015, Jah Wobble & The Invaders of the Heart embarked on an extensive six-month UK tour. They recorded the album The Usual Suspects which was released on 3m Music in 2017. A series of gigs in England from January to May 2017 was announced.
His autobiography, entitled Memoirs of a Geezer: Music, Life, Mayhem (Serpent's Tail books, London), was released in September 2009.
+ List of studio albums, with selected chart positions, sales figures and certifications ! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:12em;" | Title ! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:15em;" | Album details ! scope="col" colspan="2" | Peak chart positions |
1978 ! scope="row" | "Dreadlock Don't Deal in Wedlock" | — | N/A | |
1979 ! scope="row" | "Dan MacArthur" | — | The Legend Lives On... Jah Wobble in "Betrayal" | |
1980 ! scope="row" | "Betrayal" | — | ||
1981 ! scope="row" | "How Much Are They?" | — | Full Circle (with Jaki Liebezeit & Holger Czukay) | |
1982 ! scope="row" | "Fading" | — | Bedroom Album | |
1983 ! scope="row" | "Invaders of the Heart" | — | ||
1984 ! scope="row" | "Voodoo" (with Ollie Marland & Polly Eltes) | — | ||
1985 ! scope="row" | "Love Mystery" | — | Neon Moon (with Ollie Marland) | |
1986 ! scope="row" | "Between Two Frequencies" (with Brett Wickens) | — | ||
1987 ! scope="row" | "Island Paradise" | — | Psalms | |
1989 ! scope="row" | "The Unspoken Word" (as Invaders of the Heart) | — | Fuse II – World Dance Music (Various Artists) | |
1990 ! scope="row" | "Bomba" | — | Rising Above Bedlam (as Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart) | |
1991 ! scope="row" | "Erzulie" | — | ||
1992 ! scope="row" | "Visions of You" (featuring Sinéad O'Connor) | 10 | ||
1994 ! scope="row" | "Becoming More Like God" (featuring Anneli Drecker) | — | Take Me to God (as Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart) | |
1997 ! scope="row" | "Magical Thought" | — | The Light Programme | |
1998 ! scope="row" | "I Offer You Everything" | — | Umbra Sumus | |
2009 ! scope="row" | "Get Carter" | — | N/A | |
2012 ! scope="row" | "Mississippi" | — | Yin and Yang (with Keith Levene) | |
2014 ! scope="row" | "Watch How You Walk" | — | Inspiration (with PJ Higgins) | |
"—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released. |
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