Ian Dury
Ian Robins Dury 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, at that time in Middlesex. His early years were spent in Harrow Weald and in Mevagissey, Cornwall, during the Blitz. His father, William George Dury, was a former boxer, coach and bus driver, and chauffeur for Rolls-Royce. His mother, Margaret "Peggy" Cuthbertson Walker, was a health visitor, a doctor's daughter and the granddaughter of an East Donegal Ulster Protestant landowner. Bill and Peggy married in 1939 and set up home in Belsize Park, London.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, near Upminster in Essex, to live with Peggy's sisters. Although he saw his father on visits, they were never to live together again.
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. Chailey taught trades such as cobbling and printing, but Dury's mother wanted him to focus on academic studies, so Aunt Moll, 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:
He left school at 16, having achieved GCE 'O' levels in English Language, English Literature and Art to study art and design at Walthamstow College of Art, where he met lifelong friend, pop artist and teacher Peter Blake. In 1963 Ian began an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1966.
Art career
In 1967 Dury took part in a group exhibition, "Fantasy and Figuration", alongside his soon-to-be wife Elizabeth Rathmell, Pat Douthwaite, Herbert Kitchen and Stass Paraskos at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.Between 1966 and 1973 he was an art teacher at Luton College of Technology and at Canterbury College of Art. He also painted commercial illustrations for The Sunday Times in the early 1970s.
Music career
Kilburn and the High Roads (1971–1975)
Dury formed Kilburn and the High Roads in 1971, and they played their first gig at Croydon School of Art on 5 December 1971. Dury was vocalist and lyricist, co-writing with pianist Russell Hardy and later enrolling into the group a number of the students he was teaching at Canterbury College of Art and Medway College of Design, including bassist Humphrey Ocean.Managed first by Charlie Gillett and Gordon Nelki and latterly by fashion entrepreneur Tommy Roberts, the Kilburns were popular on London's pub rock circuit and signed to Dawn Records in 1974 but, despite favourable press coverage and a tour opening for rock band The Who, the group failed to rise above cult status and disbanded in 1975.
Kilburn and the High Roads recorded two albums, Handsome and Wotabunch!.
Going solo (August – September 1977)
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. 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).The Blockheads
Under the management of Andrew King and Peter Jenner, the original managers of Pink Floyd, Ian Dury and the Blockheads quickly gained a reputation as one of the top live acts of new wave music.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. 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, bassist Norman Watt-Roy, keyboard player Mick Gallagher, guitarist John Turnbull and former Kilburns saxophonist Davey Payne.
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.
Jankel left the band temporarily and relocated to the US after the release of "What a Waste" 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, 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.
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 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.
In 1980–81 Dury and Jankel teamed up again with Sly and Robbie and the Compass Point All Stars to record Lord Upminster. 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.
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.
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.
The Blockheads 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; this was followed by sporadic gigs in Europe, Ireland, the UK and Japan in late 1994 and 1995. 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".
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. 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.
The Blockheads have continued after Dury's death, and continue to play live gigs as of 2023.
Other solo work
Dury continued to record other work without the Blockheads, including Lord Upminster ; Apples and The Bus Driver's Prayer & Other Stories. He also released a single album with the Music Students, 4,000 Weeks' Holiday.His 1981 song "Spasticus Autisticus" written to show his disdain for that year's International Year of Disabled Persons, which he saw as patronising and counter-productive was banned by the BBC from being broadcast by the BBC before 6 pm. The lyrics were uncompromising:
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", for Popular Music:
Dury described the song as "a war cry" on Desert Island Discs. The song was used at the opening of the London 2012 Paralympics.
In 1984, Dury was featured in the music video for the minor hit single "Walking in My Sleep" by Roger Daltrey of The Who.