Rock mourns icon Strummer

Joe Strummer, frontman of influential punk band The Clash and music spokesman for a generation, has died suddenly at the age of 50. He suffered a suspected heart attack at his home near Taunton in Somerset last night.

Strummer was one of the foremost figures of British music in the past 25 years. With his gruff vocal style and impassioned Left-wing lyrics, he helped to make the raw anger and aggression of punk a worldwide phenomenon in the late Seventies and early Eighties.

U2 frontman Bono said today: "The Clash were the greatest rock band. They wrote the rule book for U2. Though I was always too much of a fan to get to know him well, we were due to meet in January. It's such a shock."

The Clash put the capital on the music map with songs such as London Calling, White Man In Hammersmith Palais and Guns Of Brixton. More recently, Strummer was a vocal opponent of the BBC's plans to change London's local radio station, GLR.

Despite their musical influence, they did not achieve a Top 10 hit until Should I Stay Or Should I Go was used in a TV jeans ad and topped the charts in 1991, three years after the band had split up.

Strummer had just completed a tour with his new band, the Mescaleros, and was about to start work on a new album. He was also working with Bono and Dave Stewart on a charity song for Nelson Mandela's Aids awareness campaign.

In the New Year he was to travel to the US for The Clash's induction into the Rock 'n'Roll Hall of Fame. Ironically, after rejecting repeated lucrative offers to reform The Clash, he was reunited onstage with guitarist Mick Jones at a benefit for the firefighters' union at Acton Town Hall last month - the first time they had played together since Jones was acrimoniously fired in 1983.

Strummer was irritated by fans' obsession with his old work, but continued to please them by performing old favourites such as White Riot, the first Clash single. Other hits included Rock The Casbah, Tommy Gun and Bankrobber. Hein van der Rey, of Epitaph Records, which put out The Mescaleros' albums, said he learned of Strummer's death this morning. "It is pretty devastating news," he said.

Strummer - real name John Mellor - was educated at City of London Freemen's School in Surrey, having been born the son of a diplomat in the Turkish capital, Ankara. He began busking before forming The 101ers in 1974. After seeing the Sex Pistols the following year, Strummer became a founding figure in punk.

He teamed up with Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Terry Chimes - later replaced by Nicky Headon - to form The Clash, who made their debut in 1976 supporting The Sex Pistols and joined them on the ill-fated Anarchy tour that year, when many shows were cancelled after tabloid outrage.

THE Clash became standard-bearers of the punk movement, and made six albums. Rolling Stone magazine voted London Calling best album of the Eighties. After Jones's departure The Clash never recaptured success and disbanded in 1986. Strummer wrote songs for Sid And Nancy, a biopic of Sid Vicious, and appeared in two films by its director, Alex Cox, and Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train.

Strummer had a stint in the early Nineties as stand-in for Shane Mac-Gowan in The Pogues, and more recently he had pursued a solo career, releasing two critically acclaimed albums.

Police said his death was not believed to be suspicious, but a post-mortem examination will take place tomorrow.

He is survived by his wife, Luce, two daughters - Jazz Domino Holly, 18, and Lola Maybellene, 16 - from his earlier marriage to Gabrielle Salter, and a stepdaughter.