Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography Will Birch
by

The first essential music book of the year

The late Lord Upminster’s life was awash with contradictions.

The offspring of a working class bus driver father and an academic bohemian mother; the abused handicapped boarder who evolved into the school bully; the performer desperate for stardom who discovered fame wasn’t what he hoped it would be. It’s all here, in a gripping biography of one of the most unlikely yet cherished musical figures of the late 20th Century.

Dury studied as a painter but emerged as a poet. Half dishevelled Teddy boy, half Dickensian caricature, he was a songwriter of formidable verbal dexterity; an old school entertainer who combined music hall, jazz and even rap to push the hitherto inflexible envelope of punk. He wasn’t always the nicest man to be around, relishing his superficial links to small time villainy, and these pages are littered with friends and fellow musicians cast aside as he climbed the ladder.

Birch, who knew Dury well initially through his own career as a musician with The Kursaal Flyers, The Records and other pub-rock/new wave activities, has produced an extraordinarily well-researched book, speaking to countless family members, contemporaries and rivals, as well as spending dozens of hours with a tape recorder in Dury’s own presence. He weaves a complicated and intriguing tapestry, especially during the singer’s adolescence, while never intruding into the story with “I was there” asides. A detailed and unsanitised portrait of a unique talent, as powerful and as colourful as the Peter Blake painting that adorns the jacket.

ISBN 9780283071034, 462 pages

Reviewed by Terry Staunton
<< Back to Issue 372