(taken from rockabilly.net)
Ian Dury
May 12, 1942. - March, 27th, 2000
Short, stocky and afflicted with polio in childhood which left him
with a limp, Ian Dury was never anyone's idea of a conventional pop
star. His music was similarly nonconformist, but with his band the
Blockheads, his lyrical and often risqué wit gave him a string of hit
singles in the late 1970s, including the chart-topping Hit Me With
Your Rhythm Stick, and made him an unlikely cult figure on the punk
scene.
Although he continued to be regarded with affection by the music
industry, the hits dried up in the 1980s and Dury turned to other
forms of expression including acting. He wrote a play, and his Cock-
ney vowels were much in demand for television voiceovers, yet music
remained close to his heart. He made an acclaimed comeback album after
a diagnosis of colonic cancer in 1998, and continued to work, making
light of living with a terminal condition.
Ian Dury was an Essex lad, born into a working-class family in
Upminster during the Second World War. His father was a bus driver and
his mother a health visitor, but they separated when he was young. At
the age of seven he contracted polio and spent two years in hospital
before he was sent to a special school.
At hospital he discovered the harsh realities of death, disability and
sickness, and claimed he once joined two other patients trying to hang
another from a tree. "We knew he wouldn't mind. He went a horrible
colour and then we let him down," he said. He hated school and kept
running away, but he was bright and despite the gap in his education
he eventually made it to grammar school and then to the Royal College
of Art.
He abandoned the idea of a career as an artist when he realised he was
not good enough to compete with the very best. "I was a good
draughtsman but I wasn't a very good painter. I got good enough as an
artist to know I would never be happy. I'd always be frustrated
because I'd never be that good," he said years later.
He lectured briefly at Canterbury College of Art and formed his first
band, Kilburn and the High Roads, in 1970, initially on a part-time
basis. They turned professional as part of the so-called pub-rock
scene of the early 1970s when they played regularly on the London
circuit alongside bands such as Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe and
Bees Make Honey. Few of them ever made the transition from bar-room to
concert hall, and Dury and his band had their share of ill-luck. An
album recorded for Warner Brothers was not released, while an album
for Pye made little impact. Eventually the band split in 1976, mainly
because Dury's doctor had ordered him off the road for health reasons.
He spent a year writing songs with his old friend Chas Jankel and was
in the right place at the right time when Dave Robinson, who had
managed Kilburn and the High Roads, set up his own label, Stiff
Records, as a bridge between the pub-rock scene and the exploding punk
movement. Dury signed as a solo artist and formed the Blockheads as a
backing band. His first solo single, the anthemic Sex and Drugs and
Rock'n'Roll, became his calling card but was not a hit; it was
enlisted for Aids education in 1987 with his approval: "Two of these
just became more dangerous," he said. The follow-up, Sweet Gene
Vincent, was no more successful although he finally reached the Top
Ten at the third attempt with What a Waste.
His first solo album New Boots and Panties! was, of its kind, an
instant classic, full of songs inhabited by outrageous characters such
as Clever Trevor, Plaistow Patricia and Billericay Dickie, as well as
Nina, who, as rhyme would have it, was obscener than a seasoned-up
hyena and enjoyed sex in the back of a Ford Cortina.
Dury's scatological poetry and rhyming slang were a more knowing take
on the anarchy of punk, with references far wider than teenage
rebellion, and musically his hybrid sound was considerably more
accomplished than the usual three-chord thrash.
He toured with the legendary comedian Max Wall, writing a song for
him, England's Glory, and over Christmas 1978 he had his biggest
success with Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, which reached number one
and was to be a minor hit twice more in subsequent years in remixed
versions.
A further single, Reasons to be Cheerful (Part Three), reached number
three and his second solo album, Do It Yourself, was kept from the top
slot only by Abba; but by the end of 1980 Dury's days in the charts
were largely behind him. There were a number of reasons, including a
backlash against punk and because he was in some ways unfairly seen as
a novelty act. Despite a tour supporting Lou Reed, his career had
failed to take off in America: his songs were too Anglo-centric and
ironic for mass tastes. Nor did he help his cause with the single
Spasticus Autisticus, a criticism of the United Nations Year of the
Disabled in 1981. Most radio stations refused to play it and his
record label Polydor withdrew it after a month.
A further album, Lord Upminster, was recorded in the Bahamas with the
Jamaican rhythm section Sly and Robbie replacing the Blockheads, but
there were more problems with Polydor in 1984 over 4,000 Weeks'
Holiday. The album was delayed for six months because the company
demanded the removal of an obscenely titled song and another about
Billy Butlin. A censored version finally appeared, but it was to be
his last solo album for eight years.
Dury meanwhile looked in new directions. He wrote the theme songs for
two series of ITVs Adrian Mole, worked for Unicef and made his acting
debut opposite Bob Geldof in Number One. Further parts followed in
Roman Polanski's Pirates and with Bob Dylan in the ill-fated, unfêted
Hearts of Fire.
He appeared in the BBC series King of the Ghetto and toured in
repertory in Talk of the Devil. He also wrote a musical, Apples, which
was staged at the Royal Court (rather a disaster, he later confessed),
and turned down the chance to write the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd
Webber's Cats. During the 1990s he appeared in the movie Split Second
and began hosting ITVs Metro series.
He made occasional live musical appearances, but his 1992 comeback
album The Bus Driver's Prayer and Other Short Stories was largely
ignored. His 1998 album Mr Love Pants was better received, partly
because interest in him had been grimly revived by the news that he
had terminal cancer. Typically he chose to break the story in The
Mirror under the headline "I am dying of cancer - but I've still got
reasons to be cheerful".
He said: "You don't have cancer; it has you. The 'chemo' won't get rid
of it. But it's another lease of - well, however long it is. You just
don't know, but it's better than being hit by a bus tomorrow; you have
time to sort yourself out."
A strong advocate of disability awareness, he travelled with the star
of the moment Robbie Williams into the Sri Lankan war zone to
highlight efforts to vaccinate children against polio.
He had lost his first wife, Betty, to cancer, and he amazed everyone
around him by the fortitude and good humour with which he bore his
illness, performing as recently as last month. He is survived by his
second wife, Sophy, and their two children, and by two grown-up
children from his first marriage.
Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll - Lp Version - 1978
Hit Me With your Rhythm Stick - Disco Version - 1978
Spasticus Autisticus - Version - 1981
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EVERY WEDNESDAY!
7pm to Midnight
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At:
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btwn 133 st & 134th St
B train to 135th st
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