Ian Dury

You must have seen parties of Blockheads

With blotched and lagered skin

Blockheads with food particles in their teeth

What a horrible state they’re in

Whether they're a star or a loser, a rock singer is always expected to be young, if not handsome. And we're not even talking about a singer who emerged in the midst of the punk era! Ian Dury was anything but that. He sang for the first time at the age of 30, released his first hit at 35, in 1977, right in the middle of the punk revolution, but above all he walked with the help of a cane because his legs were crippled by polio. He was in fact one of the many children who contracted the disease in the epidemic that struck England in 1949. His voice, moreover, resembled the slimy mumble of a pervert muttering filth down the phone line more than the raspy singing of a rocker. His decision to become a rock singer was almost accidental: a brilliant English literature student and protégé of pop artist Peter Blake, Dury was bewitched by the music of the “swingin' Sixties” and, with no musical experience whatsoever, decided together with his flatmate and pianist Rod Melvin to form a band with art students and jazz-trained musicians.

Charisma was never in short supply: Dury led his first band, Kilburn and the High Roads, in a white suit, sporting greased-back hair, pointed sideburns and razor blades worn as earrings, a getup that made him look like a vampiric or circus-like version of old rock'n'roll stars, Elvis and Gene Vincent above all. Dury's personality and the Kilburns' skill at playing both covers and originals didn't go unnoticed by audiences, to the point that future members of Madness were influenced by them, both in terms of the retro look and the blend of rock and Black music genres. But it would be Dury's second band, the Blockheads, that would take him to his creative peak, particularly with the release of the debut album “New Boots And Panties!!”.

Dury contributed to the writing of the melodies (co-written with guitarist Chaz Jankel), but above all to the lyrics, conceived with the song's metre as the main focus. The creative process started with Dury, who wrote the lyrics beginning from the drum parts - which he played himself - to give them rhythmic drive. Jankel then developed the melodies and arrangements around them. Inspired by everyday stories, characters and places from his youth as an Upminster boy, Dury's lyrics stage a series of masks and characters from the East London and Essex working class, highlighting their vices and perversions. Often overshadowed by the crudeness and irony of their content, the quality of his lyrics stood out and would prove influential some fifteen years later, when the world heard Happy Mondays, Carter USM and Blur drawing on Dury's caustic pen to write their own sketches.

The Blockheads were actually a continuation of the Kilburns, an expanded lineup with musicians from various bands, whose sound drew strength from the alchemy of their styles: funk, jazz, blues, rock and music hall, the latter a great passion of Dury's. The result is close to what we'd now call pub rock, referring above all to the roster of Stiff Records, the only label willing to release Dury and the Blockheads' debut (Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Wreckless Eric being the most notable names). At the time the first album came out, the band hadn't yet chosen a name, so the record was credited to Ian Dury alone. Nevertheless, the personalities of stellar musicians such as saxophonist Davey Payne (already a member of the Kilburns), bass virtuoso Norman Watt-Roy and Geoff Castle, who contributed bizarre Moog synthesizer solos, come through loud and clear. Once again in the history of pop music, a visionary musician manages to make up for a lack of technical training with a talent for choosing the best collaborators.

Confirming the socio-linguistic impact of Ian Dury's work is the single that preceded the album's release, “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”, whose title has since become a standard expression in the English language, if not the ultimate rock slogan. Summer 1977, the height of the punk era: Dury shows up with a rubbery riff, tribal breaks with a voodoo flavour and a chorus that veers close to disco music. The song was naturally censored by BBC Radio, which mistook it for an anthem to punks' unhealthy lifestyle rather than a sharp reflection on happiness. Sales of the single were extremely poor, but NME named it “single of the week”, turning it into a minor classic. Together with other singles from the same period, none of which appeared on the original edition of the album, “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” boosted sales of “New Boots And Panties!!”, which went platinum after a full 73 weeks on the sales charts, peaking at number five.

“I come awake/ with a gift for womankind”: these are the words that open the record, full of the racy confessions of a lover who can't resist waking his woman for sex. It's all set to the beat of a brash, glittering funk, with piano and bass notes tastefully interlocking, and the moans of a Moog in the background. The situation is turned on its head in “Partial To Your Abracadabra”, the most rock track on the record: this time it's the man who falls victim to a woman's teasing and caresses, in a mix of pleasure and torment: “There's been a manifestation/ nature made it answer the call/ it simply can't resist/ boots and pants like this”.

The only single taken from the album is “Sweet Gene Vincent”, dedicated to the singer of the same name, whom Dury admired and whose records he owned in full. It wouldn't sell much, but it would become one of his live staples, with an arpeggiated, retro opening and an all-out rock'n'roll finale, both packed with references to Vincent's songs. Guitarist Chaz Jankel would later joke about the length of the original draft of the lyrics, so full of references that it would have taken a 15-minute song to sing them all.

The loose metre of “Clevor Trever” confirms Dury's talent as a writer, with dozens of syllables and double negatives spat out almost like rap over a near-disco backing. It's the ramblings of a simple-minded Londoner who, despite a shaky grasp of the language, wants to prove he's clever, even though he's never said or done anything to show it (“Just cos I ain't never 'ad, no, nothing worth having, never ever, never ever/ You ain't got no call not to think I wouldn't fall into thinking that I ain't too clever”).

What really makes the record shine are, above all, the more cartoonish songs written with American guitarist Steve Nugent. “My Old Man”, with its drowsy pace and jazzy arrangements, sketches a portrait of William Dury, Ian's father, painted as a proud, thick-skinned man, while letting through the nostalgia and regret of a son who never got the chance to fully know his father - “Seven years went out the window/ we met as one to one/ died before we'd done much talking”.

Far more cheerful is “Billericay Dickie”, structured like a nursery rhyme inspired by music hall. It's a caricature of the typical Essex lad: the song's protagonist is a boastful bricklayer who scornfully name-drops all his conquests and the places where he carried out his romantic escapades. At the end of each chorus, though, he hypocritically insists on pointing out his moral integrity. The same misogyny resurfaces in the syncopated “If I Was With A Woman”, this time in a more morbid form, as it fills the angry thoughts of a pathetic man, victim of a heartbreak, who plans his revenge against women (“If I was with a woman I'd make believe I loved her/ when all the time I would not like her much”).

The closing belongs to the three toughest, most shouted tracks. “Blockheads”, which would give the band its name, is built on a rock'n'roll riff like so many other punk songs, but its ferocity and violence are almost comparable to those of the Californian hardcore scene that would emerge shortly after. The masterstroke within the masterpiece is the extremely noisy Moog solo, which seems to mimic the sound of dripping sludge, an effect not unlike the sonic tricks that Stranglers keyboardist Dave Greenfield pulled off on songs like “Nice 'n' Sleazy”. “Assholes, bastards, fucking cunts and pricks” are the lines that open the explosive “Plaistow Patricia”, another punk anthem, this time about a heroin-addicted woman and her misadventures. Closing things out is the outrageous “Blackmail Man”, another tirade, this time at double speed.

There are numerous editions in circulation that include the singles “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”, “What A Waste” and their respective B-sides.

“You're More Than Fair”, a song from the Kilburns era and B-side of “Sweet Gene Vincent”, absorbs the reggae influences that were permeating English rock in the late Seventies. The lyrics once again chronicle a sexual encounter, made hilarious by the candour with which Dury narrates its progress through various rooms of a house, starting at the front door and ending up on the roof. It might not seem shocking nowadays, but a pop lyric containing the word “clitoris” must have made more than one listener blush back in 1977. Sticking with the humorous vein, “Razzle In My Pocket” tells of a young man caught trying to steal a porn magazine.

“What A Waste”, a 1975 track co-written with Rod Melvin, was left off the album, as was customary at the time, yet it proved crucial to the record's success, so much so that it appears as a bonus track on more recent reissues. The lyrics arguably represent Ian Dury's creative peak, as he wonders what would have become of him had he not become a rock musician: “I could be a lawyer with stratagems and muses/ I could be a doctor with poultices and bruises/ I could be a writer with a growing reputation/ I could be the ticket-man at Fulham Broadway station”. The superb arrangement recorded with the Blockheads sets verses full of liquid, rubbery, thoroughly Seventies easy-listening sounds against reckless Moog and sax solos in the bridge.

Part of Ian Dury's legacy transcends the grooves of this album and can be found in the lyrics of his singles and in his story as an ordinary man who became a successful rock star and actor. However, it's above all thanks to the stylistic plurality of "New Boots And Panties!!" that pub-rock established itself as a genre speaking the language of punk as much as those of new wave, reggae and funk. As already mentioned, his caustic vignettes would influence the loquacious prose of Carter Usm and the working-class anthems of Madness, who likewise loved that clownish style — cheerful on the surface but actually melancholic — that Dury brought to the stage. It's no coincidence that Dury would go on to collaborate with both.

It's no surprise that his mocking humour reached the pen of Charlie Brooker, who would spoof Dury's "Reasons To Be Cheerful, Pt. 3" in the year-end episode of the 2014 season of "Weekly Wipe", with what remained of the Blockheads playing the instrumental backing.

Dury died of cancer in 2000. His last appearance came at a charity concert for the fight against cancer, just weeks before his death. His son Baxter would follow in his footsteps and release four solo albums.

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28/02/2016