‘Ian’s spirit is on stage with us all the time’ Blockheads guitarist and keyboard player Chaz Jankal remembers his friend Ian – the Godfather of Punk – on the 25th anniversary of his death
Growling lyrics to songs like Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick with a razor blade dangling from his ear, Ian Dury was like no other lead singer when his band The Blockheads burst on to the 1970s music scene.
Disabled by polio, aged 7, causing paralysis on the left hand side of his body, he was dubbed ‘the Godfather of Punk.’ In fact, his blend of punk rock, funk, reggae, new wave, jazz and rock and roll, was as unique as Dury himself.
The Blockheads’ debut single Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll in 1977 was named Single of the Week by music bible the NME, but was banned by the BBC who thought it was distasteful and offensive.
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Enjoying top 40 hits with Rhythm Stick, What a Waste and Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3, today (Thursday March 27) it’s 25 years since Ian Dury died of cancer of the liver, aged just 57.
Still performing with The Blockheads, friend and co-writer Chaz Jankel, 72, tells The Mirror: “When we started there was no other band that I knew of in the late 70s that played such a wide range of music, from soulful funk to music hall.
“Our music was like raucous English RnB, the precursor of punk. Ian was termed ‘The Godfather of Punk’ because he was the first one to hang a razorblade from his ear, before Sid Vicious did it. His spirit is still in everything we do because his lyrics are so poignant even today.”
It’s nearly 50 years since Ian Dury and the Blockheads first took the UK music scene by storm. The band he formed is currently touring the UK with Chaz Jankel on guitar and keyboards, John Turnbull on guitar,, Mick Gallagher on keyboards, John Roberts on drums and Mike Bennett as lead vocalist.
And while they have some new tracks, it’s still the old hits that send the crowd wild. “If Ian was alive today – he would have been 83 next birthday,” says Chaz. “He’d see we have three generations of fans – granddads, their sons and daughters and their children.
“The crowd go mad when we mention his name during one of our gigs – it always gets a cheer, even though half of them never saw him play because they’re too young. Sweet Gene Vincent always goes down a storm as does Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3. But if you were to measure using a Clapometer, it would probably be Clevor Trever. I thank Ian during every gig we play.”
Growing up in Harrow, Dury’s mum Peggy was a health visitor and his dad, William, a former boxer, was a bus driver and chauffeur for Rolls Royce. Sent to Chailey Heritage Craft School in East Sussex – a hospital school for disabled kids known for toughening them up – for three years, he then went to the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe. He found his feet at Wathamstow School of Art in east London, where he befriended pop art legend Peter Blake, before studying for an MA at the Royal Academy of Art.
Chaz continues: “Sex, drugs and Rock n Roll was an observation of the world and a reflection of the time he lived in rather than him saying ‘that’s what I want’ He liked the attention of the opposite sex – there’s no doubt about that – but he wasn’t a womaniser. I think he always needed a female companion by his side but there were two prominent women in his life.”
Dury – who was in a band called Kilburn and the High Roads before The Blockheads – was first married to Elizabeth Rathmell, known as Betty, who he had children Baxter, now 53, and Jemima, 56, with. But, in an interview, he said: “The band (The High Roads) was the end of our marriage. Not because I was out getting drunk, drugs and groupies – but because I was never there basically.
“My daughter said there were times when she felt a bit lonely. More so when I was being a so-called success, because it was in the papers. She was aware of my being alive without me being there.” A complex character, Chaz remembers his friend as not being good with drink, adding: “There was a shift in his personality after he’d had a drink. He didn’t hold his liquor well – it would give him Dutch courage and then, sometimes, the frustration that had been building up in his sober hours – that could turn into a little bit vindictive. He’d find somebody’s Achille’s heel and he’d go for that.”
Dury never dreamed of becoming a singer, instead, after doing his MA in art, he worked as an illustrator and taught students at Canterbury College of Art. Chaz recalls: “I remember he said to me once that when he couldn’t be as great as Rembrandt he turned his hand to music.
“But Ian was an artist who painted with his words – he loved to paint characters. Out of all the other skills he had – such as being a great entertainer – Ian’s greatest talent was as a writer. He was a great poet and totally authentic and individual. There was a great modesty and a realism that came from him that allowed him to be a true artist.”
Chaz will never forget the first time he met Ian, when he’d just finished a ‘loud and raucous’ set with Kilburn and the High Roads at a pub in London. Ian didn’t know that Chaz was interested in joining the band so, thinking he was just a customer getting in the way, he told him to ‘eff off’.
“When I first saw them play I was absolutely awestruck, more perplexed and hypnotized than enamoured,” Chaz recalls. “He was the king of the pub circuit, mischievous, wise and rebellious. They invited me to rehearse with them. I remember I wasn’t entirely sure about it but I did go. It ended up being an audition and I got the gig.”
But being a rockstar wasn’t an easy path for Dury, who struggled with his disability. “Life on the road was tough – he lived in a third floor flat but rhythm was like his exercise,” says Chaz. “He loved to sit behind a drum kit and put out a 4/4 drum beat. We wrote Spasticus Autisticus together, which had that spirit of resilience within the rhythm. The song is about moving forward, but not without a struggle.”
Spasticus Autisticus was penned in 1981 as a protest against the International Year of Disabled Persons, which Dury considered to be patronising. Fed up with repeated requests to get involved with charitable causes, Dury wrote the ‘anti-charity’ song, which is often described as a cross between a battle cry and an appeal for understanding.
Chaz says of his bond with Dury: “We knew each other so well that we could write music and lyrics apart from each other and when we came together it would just fit like a glove. It made my hair stand up on the back of my neck.”
But the singer told a BBC documentary Ian Dury On My Life, that he only started a band to subsidise his artwork. “I started a band using three of the students from Canterbury, The Kilburns,” he said. “I started doing the band in order to subsidise my paintings to make a living that wasn’t teaching. I saw bands and I thought they were crap and I thought I could do bette,r in terms of entertainment. But I never thought of myself as a singer, I always thought of myself as a performer.”
He also said he’d never been interested in fame. “I don’t go on stage to soak up applause – I go on stage to feel exonerated or useful. I’ve had a fulfilling life since I was a young sprog,” he said. “I knew that art school was an institution I could subscribe to. I wanted to go to art school because I liked the idea of the Bohemian lifestyle – freedom.
“I thought I might be a painter one day – it was a way of life that appealed to me – it was the freedom, the style, the glamour of not being normal. I’ve had a major crack at life – more than most people get. If I was feeling frustrated or unrecognised, or unfulfilled it would be much more difficult. But I don’t feel any of that stuff, I feel very lucky. Almost as if I’ve had a blessed life really.”
Now, 25 years since his death on March 27 2000, his impact on the music scene and on those close to him remains as strong as ever. Blockheads keyboard player Mick Gallagher tells The Mirror: “Ian had a magnetic personality. Like moths around a candle, people were drawn to him, whether or not they knew why. He was always ‘interesting’. We celebrate his life and work at every show. God bless him.”
The Blockheads have a new single out called Liberty.
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