On Sunday, December 22, at the age of 50, punk legend Joe Strummer died at his home in Somerset, England. He leaves behind a wife, two daughters, one stepdaughter, and a body of some of the most important and influential rock and roll ever recorded. It was as a member of the Clash that Strummer first rose to prominence, fronting an explosive band that featured Mick Jones on guitar, Paul Simonon on bass, and at various times Terry Chimes and Topper Headon on drums. Though their recording career only lasted five years — from 1977 to 1982 — the five albums and assorted singles the band released during that vital period left an indelible mark on rock and roll as both an art form and a social force. Indeed, it was the unique idealism that Strummer brought to the corrupt world of pop music that tore the band apart, as a stubborn Strummer refused to concede to the forces of commercialism that overtake every popular band. Even at his lowest point — when, after firing Jones, he led a second-rate Clash on a US tour in support of the deeply flawed 1985 album Cut the Crap (Epic) — Strummer refused to admit defeat.

Strummer didn’t invent punk rock. In fact, he didn’t even really found the Clash — he was actually recruited from his pub rock outfit the 101ers to front a band Mick Jones was putting together. But more than anyone else from that original class of ’77, Strummer gave punk a purpose, turning the Clash into a musical force who could rightfully claim they were "the only the band that mattered" — and mean it. It was the little things that Strummer did that mattered so much: the true fervor and compassion with which he fought racism in rock; his insistence on exposing Clash fans to new ideas and new sounds, from socialist politics to Grandmaster Flash. In his hands, a Mick Jones song called "I’m So Bored With You" became "I’m So Bored With the U.S.A.," and maybe that’s all you really need to know about how crucial Strummer’s impact on the Clash and punk rock really was. Out of the anarchy of the moment, he alone emerged as a rebel with a cause, laying the foundation for bands like U2 and a frontman like Bono. And while there were questions about the veracity of the tales he told of his formative years, there was no doubting Strummer’s integrity when it came to his belief in the power of rock and roll to change lives, and the relevance of punk as a means for anyone, Strummer included, to reinvent him- or herself.

In many ways, Strummer was a product of his times, which saw a hopeless recession in England and a world seemingly perched on the brink of annihilation at the hands of two cold-warring nuclear superpowers. And, yet, to those who knew him or even made the smallest connection with him, he could seem timeless. He simply was who he was, and it was our good fortune that he happened to come around at a time when some of us were willing to listen to his songs, to share in his rebel rock. It’s a pity he passed away just as his long-stalled solo career had begun to gain momentum: over the past three years he’d released two solid solo albums on the American punk label Epitaph, and his tour behind 1999’s Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (Hellcat/Epitaph), which featured a number of Clash tunes, was a triumph. On the other hand, he lived long enough to hear the punk he’d preached reinvigorated and reaching a new mainstream through Epitaph bands like Rancid. It was this, in part, that convinced him that it was again worth making music. There’s a certain beauty there that Strummer himself certainly appreciated.

(Next week’s Arts section will include a special feature on Joe Strummer’s life and music.)