Annie Nightingale, The Clash and Joe Strummer’s brand new Cadillac
On their third studio album, London Calling, The Clash paid homage to the rockabilly influence of Vince Taylor, covering the classic track ‘Brand New Cadillac’. Centring around the famously grand American automobiles, The Clash cover, in many ways, eclipsed Vince Taylor’s original. ‘Brand New Cadillac’ turned out to be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with Joe Strummer getting his hands on a brand new Cadillac of his own shortly after the album’s release.
The story of Strummer’s Cadillac starts with the legendary BBC Radio One disc-jockey Annie Nightingale. Nightingale was a key figure in promoting the cultural revolution of punk rock, championing groups like The Clash and their contemporaries. Prior to the release of The Clash’s lead single ‘London Calling’, from the album of the same name, the DJ made a bet with Joe Strummer: if the single did not reach the top ten, she would buy Strummer a Cadillac. As if by design, ‘London Calling’ peaked at number 11 in the singles chart.
Their best-selling single up to that point, the song was kept out of the top ten by the likes of Abba, The Pretenders and Madness, the performance of ‘London Calling’ meant only one thing: Strummer was owed a Cadillac. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to face Joe Strummer again,” Nightingale said in a broadcast shortly after the single’s release, “I guaranteed him – I promised that ‘London Calling’ would definitely be a top ten, and he bet me something like a Cadillac.”
Luckily, Nightingale’s plea of “Free Cadillacs for me, please, for Joe Strummer” did hail some results, with one listener donating a 1968 Cadillac deVille in pristine white. While the story does provide an entertaining chapter in punk history, the reality of owning a huge white Cadillac is a lot more trying. Not only is the car far too big for the narrow country roads of the UK, but its appalling fuel performance was at odds with the energy crisis of the late 1970s. Above all else, though, Joe Strummer could not drive.
So, after using the car as a prop for a photo opportunity themed around their cover of ‘Brand New Cadillac’, Strummer was essentially left with a huge white American paperweight. Owing to his endless generosity and penchant for political activism, The Clash frontman made the decision to auction off the Cadillac he had won from Annie Nightingale, using the money raised to help benefit the steel town of Corby in Northamptonshire.
Corby was struggling by the end of the 1970s, with Keith Joseph announcing the closure of the Corby Steelworks in May 1979, the same month that Margaret Thatcher rose to power. The closure resulted in the loss of nearly 11,000 jobs. The auctioning off of Strummer’s Cadillac went towards providing relief to some of the families affected by that job loss.
The story of Strummer’s brand new Cadillac resurfaced recently after the sad loss of Annie Nightingale. The radio DJ was a pioneering force, both for the advancement of alternative music scenes like punk rock, as well as for women in radio and broadcasting in general. Nightingale was the first female DJ on the BBC, as well as being the first female presenter of the Old Grey Whistle Test. Among countless other acts, Nightingale championed the music of The Clash, though she probably didn’t realise it would cost her a Cadillac.
