Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 – 27 March 2000) was an English singer, songwriter and actor who rose to fame in the late 1970s, during the punk and new wave era of rock music. He was the lead singer and lyricist of Kilburn and the High Roads, The Kilburns, Ian Dury and the Blockheads and Ian Dury and the Music Students.
Early life and education
Ian Dury was born at 43 Weald Rise in Harrow, then in Middlesex.[1] His early years were spent in Harrow Weald (although it's often misreported that he was born in Upminster, Essex, an impression he often encouraged himself) and in Mevagissey, Cornwall, during the Blitz.[8] His father, William George Dury (born 23 September 1905 in Southborough, Kent, died 25 February 1968 in Victoria, London), was a former boxer, coach and bus driver, and chauffeur for Rolls-Royce. His mother, Margaret "Peggy" Cuthbertson Walker (born 17 April 1910, Rochdale, Lancashire, died 20 December 1994 in Hampstead, London),[1] was a health visitor,[9] a doctor's daughter and the granddaughter of an East DonegalUlster Protestant landowner.[10][11] Bill and Peggy married in 1939 and set up home in Belsize Park, London.[9]
Bill Dury was absent for work for long periods, so Peggy often took Ian to stay with her parents in Mevagissey. After the Second World War, the family moved briefly to Switzerland, where Ian's father was chauffeuring for a millionaire and the Western European Union. In 1946, Peggy brought Ian back to England and they relocated to Cranham,[12] near Upminster in Essex, to live with Peggy's sisters, Elisabeth and Mary Walker, and Ian's cousins, Martin and Lucy. Although he saw his father on visits, they were never to live together again.[13]
At age seven, Dury contracted polio, most likely, he believed, at Westcliff Swimming Pool in Southend-on-Sea during the 1949 polio epidemic. After six weeks of isolation in the Royal Cornwall Infirmary, Truro, Ian was moved by ambulance back to Essex, to Black Notley Hospital in Braintree, where he spent eighteen months regaining his strength and mobility. Polio caused paralysis on the left-hand side of his body which led to a permanent disability.
Ian attended Chailey Heritage Craft School, East Sussex, from 1951 till 1954. Chailey was a hospital school for disabled children that had an ethos of toughening up its students, often by leaving the less physically able to find their own way up off the floor. Arguably, this harsh approach contributed to the tough and determined person Dury became.[14] Chailey taught trades such as cobbling and printing, but Dury's mother wanted him to focus on academic studies, so Aunt Moll (Mary Walker), a Buckinghamshire Education Officer, arranged for him to attend the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe. Ian found this school a challenge and recounted being punished for misdemeanours by being forced by prefects to learn long tracts of poetry until a housemaster found him sobbing and put a stop to it:
I had to go into a box room where the suitcases were stored and learn 80 lines of Ode to Autumn by yer man Keats. If I got a word wrong I had to go back, they added that to the end of the sentence and after five nights of this my head had definitely gone.[15]
Managed first by Charlie Gillett and Gordon Nelki and latterly by fashion entrepreneur Tommy Roberts, the Kilburns found favour on London's pub rock circuit and signed to Dawn Records in 1974 but, despite favourable press coverage and a tour opening for English rock band The Who, the group failed to rise above cult status and disbanded in 1975.[citation needed]
The single "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", released 26 August 1977, marked Dury's Stiff Records debut. Although it was banned by the BBC, it was named Single of the Week by NME on its release.[23] The single issue was soon followed, at the end of September, by the album New Boots and Panties!! which achieved platinum status. "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" was not listed on the album's track list, yet it was nonetheless present as track 1 on side 2 of some later 1977 pressings).[24]
The Blockheads' sound drew from its members' diverse musical influences, which included jazz, rock and roll, funk, and reggae, and Dury's love of music hall. The band was formed after Dury began writing songs with pianist and guitarist Chaz Jankel (the brother of music video, TV, commercial and film director Annabel Jankel). Jankel took Dury's lyrics, fashioned a number of songs, and they began recording with members of Radio Caroline's Loving Awareness Band – drummer Charley Charles (born Hugh Glenn Mortimer Charles, Guyana 1945), bassist Norman Watt-Roy, keyboard player Mick Gallagher, guitarist John Turnbull and former Kilburns saxophonist Davey Payne.[citation needed]
Live at The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London, 1978
In October 1977 Dury and his band started performing as Ian Dury and the Blockheads, when the band signed on for the Stiff "Live Stiffs Tour" alongside Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, and Larry Wallis. The tour was a success, and Stiff launched a concerted Ian Dury marketing campaign, resulting in the Top Ten hit "What a Waste" and the hit single "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick", which reached No. 1 in the UK at the beginning of 1979, selling just short of a million copies. Again, "Hit Me" was not included on the original release of the subsequent album Do It Yourself. With their hit singles, the band built up a dedicated following in the UK and other countries and their next single "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" made number three in the UK.
The band's second album Do It Yourself was released in June 1979 in a Barney Bubbles-designed sleeve of which there were over a dozen variations, all based on samples from the Crown wallpaper catalogue. Bubbles also designed the Blockhead logo.[25]
Jankel left the band temporarily and relocated to the US after the release of "What a Waste" (his organ part on that single was overdubbed later) but he subsequently returned to the UK and began touring sporadically with the Blockheads, eventually returning to the group full-time for the recording of "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick"; according to Mickey Gallagher, the band recorded 28 takes of the song but eventually settled on the second take for the single release. Partly due to personality clashes with Dury,[23] Jankel left the group again in 1980, after the recording of the Do It Yourself LP, and he returned to the US to concentrate on his solo career.[citation needed]
The group worked solidly over the 18 months between the release of "Rhythm Stick" and their next single, "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3", which returned them to the charts, making the UK Top 10. Jankel was replaced by former Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson, who also contributed to the next album Laughter (1980) and its two hit singles, although Gallagher recalls that the recording of the Laughter album was difficult and that Dury was drinking heavily in this period.[23]
In 1980–81 Dury and Jankel teamed up again with Sly and Robbie and the Compass Point All Stars to record Lord Upminster (1981). The Blockheads toured the UK and Europe throughout 1981, sometimes augmented by jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, ending the year with their only tour of Australia.[26]
The Blockheads disbanded in early 1982, after Dury secured a new recording deal with Polydor Records through A&R man Frank Neilson. Choosing to work with a group of young musicians which he named the Music Students, he recorded the album Four Thousand Weeks' Holiday. This album marked a departure from his usual style and was not as well received by fans for its American jazz influence.[citation needed]
The Blockheads briefly reformed in June 1987 to play a short tour of Japan, and then disbanded again. In September 1990, following the death from cancer of drummer Charley Charles, they reunited for two benefit concerts in aid of Charles' family, held at The Forum, Camden Town, with Steven Monti on drums. In December 1990, augmented by Merlin Rhys-Jones on guitar and Will Parnell on percussion, they recorded the live album Warts & Audience at the Brixton Academy.[26]
The Blockheads (minus Jankel, who returned to California) toured Spain in January 1991, then disbanded again until August 1992 when, following Jankel's return to England, they were invited to reform for the Madstock! Festival in Finsbury Park;[27] this was followed by sporadic gigs in Europe, Ireland, the UK and Japan in late 1994 and 1995.[26] In the early 1990s, Dury appeared with English band Curve on the benefit compilation album Peace Together. Dury and Curve singer Toni Halliday shared vocals on a cover of the Blockheads' track "What a Waste".[citation needed]
In March 1996 Dury was diagnosed with cancer and, after recovering from an operation, he set about writing another album. In late 1996 he reunited with the Blockheads to record the album Mr. Love Pants (1997). Ian Dury and the Blockheads resumed touring, with Dylan Howe replacing Steven Monti on drums. Davey Payne left the group permanently in August and was replaced by Gilad Atzmon; this line-up gigged throughout 1999, culminating in their last performance with Ian Dury on 6 February 2000 at the London Palladium. Dury died six weeks later on 27 March 2000.[26]
The Blockheads have continued after Dury's death, and continue to play live gigs as of 2023[update].[28]
So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin
And thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in
So long have I been languished on the shelf
I must give all proceedings to myself
The song's refrain, "I'm spasticus, autisticus", was inspired by the response of the rebellious Roman gladiators in the film Spartacus, who, when instructed to identify their leader, all answered, "I am Spartacus", to protect him. According to George McKay, in his 2009 article "Crippled with nerves" (an early Dury song title), for Popular Music:[29]
Ian Dury, that 'flaw of the jungle', produced a remarkable and sustained body of work that explored issues of disability, in both personal and social contexts, institutionalisation, and to a lesser extent the pop cultural tradition of disability. He also, with the single "Spasticus Autisticus" (1981), produced one of the outstanding protest songs about the place of disabled people in what he called 'normal land'.
Dury's self-styling and chief musical influence was his hero since childhood, American rock and roll and rockabilly artist Gene Vincent. After hearing Vincent's hit single "Be-Bop-a-Lula" in the 1956 musical comedy film The Girl Can't Help It, he idolised him. Vincent also wore a leg brace, although Dury said he did not know this until later. Vincent is mentioned in one of Dury's earliest songs, "Upminster Kid"[31] (on the 1975 Kilburn and the High Roads album Handsome[32]),[33] with the words "Well Gene Vincent Craddock remembered the love of an Upminster rock 'n' roll teen". Vincent had died four years earlier.[31]
More well-known is the single "Sweet Gene Vincent" from his first solo album, New Boots and Panties!! in 1977. He wrote the lyrics after spending six weeks of research on Vincent, which included reading two biographies. His songwriting partner Chas Jankel had to trim it considerably, after Dury's original version, Jankel joked, "would have taken around 15 minutes to perform". The opening lyrics to the song were:[31]
Blue Gene baby / Skinny white sailor, the chances were slender / The beauties were brief / Shall I mourn your decline with some Thunderbird wine / And a black handkerchief? / I miss your sad Virginia whisper / I miss the voice that called my heart.
Dury was a lover of music hall, another of his heroes being Max Wall. Dury developed a unique style that mixed music hall with punk and rock and roll, and crafted an on-stage persona that entertained his audiences.[34]
Dury's lyrics are a combination of lyrical poetry, word play, observation of British everyday life, character sketches, and sexual humour: "This is what we find ... Home improvement expert Harold Hill of Harold Hill, Of do-it-yourself dexterity and double-glazing skill, Came home to find another gentleman's kippers in the grill, So he sanded off his winkle with his Black & Decker drill".[citation needed] The song "Billericay Dickie" rhymes "I had a love affair with Nina, In the back of my Cortina" with "A seasoned-up hyena Could not have been more obscener".[34]
Acting and other activities
Dury in concert
Dury's confident and unusual demeanour caught the eyes of producers and directors of drama. His first important and extensive role was in Farrukh Dhondy's mini-series for the BBC King of the Ghetto (1986), a drama set in London's multi-racial Brick Lane area with a cast led by a young Tim Roth.[citation needed]
Dury also wrote a musical, Apples, staged in London's Royal Court Theatre. In 1987 he appeared as the narrator (Scullery) in Road, also at the Royal Court. Among the cast was actress and singer Jane Horrocks, who cohabited with Dury until late in 1988, although the relationship was kept discreet.[36]
... I said no straight off. I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber. He's a wanker, isn't he? ... [E]very time I hear 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' I feel sick, it's so bad. He got Richard Stilgoe to do the lyrics in the end, who's not as good as me. He made millions out of it. He's crap, but he did ask the top man first![38]
When HIV/AIDS first came to prominence in the mid-1980s, Dury was among celebrities who appeared on UK television to promote safe sex, demonstrating how to put on a condom using a model of an erect penis. In the 1990s, he became an ambassador for UNICEF, recruiting stars such as Robbie Williams to publicise the cause. The two visited Sri Lanka in this capacity to promote polio vaccination. Dury appeared with Curve on the Peace Together concert and CD (1993), performing "What a Waste", with benefits to the Youth of Northern Ireland. He also supported the charity Cancer BACUP.[citation needed]
Dury appeared in the Classic Albums episode that focused on Steely Dan's album Aja. Dury commented that the album was one of the most "upful" he had ever heard, and that the album "lifted [his] spirits up" whenever he played it.[39]
Dury was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 1996 and underwent surgery, but tumours were later found in his liver, and he was told that his condition was terminal.[40]
In 1998, his death was incorrectly announced on XFM radio by Bob Geldof, possibly due to hoax information from a listener.[41] In 1999, Dury collaborated with Madness on their first original album in fourteen years on the track "Drip Fed Fred". It was one of his last recordings, though he also performed again with the Blockheads in mid-1999 at Ronnie Scott's in Soho. This was a special performance recorded for LWT's South Bank Show and the audience were invited fans and friends of the band and crew. His deteriorating condition was evident and he had to take rests between takes and be helped on and off stage.[citation needed]
Ian Dury and the Blockheads' last public performance was a charity concert in aid of Cancer BACUP on 6 February 2000 at the London Palladium, supported by Kirsty MacColl and Phill Jupitus. Dury was noticeably ill and again had to be helped on and off stage.[citation needed]
Dury died of metastatic colorectal cancer on 27 March 2000, aged 57, in Hampstead, London.[9] He was cremated after a humanist funeral at Golders Green Crematorium with 250 mourners at the service, including fellow musicians Suggs and Jools Holland and other "celebrity fans" such as Member of Parliament (MP) Mo Mowlam.[42]
An obituary in The Guardian called him "one of few true originals of the English music scene".[37] Suggs, the lead singer of Madness, called him "possibly the finest lyricist we've seen". The Ian Dury website opened an online book of condolence shortly after his death, which was signed by hundreds of fans.[43]
Dury's son, Baxter Dury, is also a singer. He sang a few of his father's songs at the wake after the funeral, and has released six of his own albums, including It's a Pleasure (2014), Prince of Tears (2017) and The Night Chancers (2020).[44]
In 2002, Jemima Dury organised a "musical bench" designed by Mil Stricevic to be placed in a favourite viewing spot of Dury's near Poets' Corner, in the gardens of Pembroke Lodge, in Richmond Park, south-west London.[45] The back of the bench is inscribed with the words "Reasons to Be Cheerful", the title of one of Dury's songs.[46] The QR codes on the arms of the bench allow visitors to listen to a track listing of his songs on one side and his appearance on Desert Island Discs on the other.[47]
In 1999 the autobiographical documentary On My Life, directed by Mike Connolly, was released. The film, in which Dury recalled his life and career, intercut with concert footage, included contributions from painter Peter Blake, Jemima and Baxter Dury, and members of the Blockheads. The programme was first broadcast in 1999 and again in August 2009 on BBC Four.[48][49]
Between 6 January and 14 February 2009 a musical about his life, entitled Hit Me! The Life & Rhymes of Ian Dury, was premiered and ran at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.[50]
A musical, Reasons to be Cheerful, was produced by the Graeae Theatre Company in association with Theatre Royal Stratford East and New Wolsey Theatre. Set in 1979 the musical featured Dury classics in a "riotous coming-of-age tale". The 2010 production was supported by the Blockheads, while Sir Peter Blake donated a limited edition print of the "Reasons to be Cheerful" artwork.[53]
Interviewed by the Evening Standard in 2010, son Baxter said his father "was like a "Polaris missile"... "He would seek out someone's weakness in seconds, and then lock onto it. That's how he controlled his environment. It was very funny, in a gruesome kind of way ... if it wasn't you he was picking on. But it was a strange obsession, too. Like, why do you want to be like that? He was never really physically violent – he was a small disabled guy – but there was a lot of mental violence."[54]
Speaking to BBC Radio 2 in February 2021, English pop star Robbie Williams cited Dury as his biggest inspiration as a lyricist.[55] Williams sings on the final track of the posthumously released album Ten More Turnips from the Tip.[56]
Personal life
Dury married Elizabeth "Betty" Rathmell on 3 June 1967 in Barnstaple, Devon, and they had two children, Jemima and Baxter, in 1969 and 1971. In 1973 Dury left the family, who were living at the time in a Buckinghamshire village, and moved back to London to pursue his music career.[19]
He lived with his partner Denise Roudette[19] for six years after he moved back to London, renting 40 Oval Mansions in Kennington, which The Guardian referred to as "one of London's most notorious squatted buildings" and Dury himself dubbed "Catshit Mansions".[57]
Dury and Rathmell divorced in 1985 but remained close. He had a year-long relationship (1986–87) with actor Jane Horrocks, whom he met while they both performed in Jim Cartright's play Road and they remained friends until his death.[58]
Dury married sculptor Sophy Tilson in 1998, with whom he had two children, Bill and Albert, in 1995 and 1997.[40]
^Birch, W. (2011), Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography, p. 73
^Berger, Harris M.; Carroll, Michael Thomas (2003). Global pop, local language. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 223. ISBN1-57806-536-4. Archived from the original on 29 September 2021. Retrieved 16 February 2010.
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