![\"iandury\"](\"http:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/iandury.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nKnock me dahn wiv a fevver\u2026! Vose \u2019ard working gells an\u2019 geezas over at Edsel \u2019ave only gorn an\u2019 rahnded up Ian Dury entire back pages.<\/p>\n
Well, almost. It\u2019s only the albums that came out on vinyl. If I was being a clever bastard I\u2019d say they could have gone the extra mile and included the posthumous Ten More Turnips from the Tip. But I ain\u2019t. So I won\u2019t. But I wish they \u2019ad. Oddly enough, you can get all the albums in a CD set with a bonus disc rounding up the hit singles.<\/p>\n
Anyway, what this all adds up to is a stonewall case for Dury\u2019s status as a true great of late 20th century English songwriting. Surrounded by a killer band in the Blockheads and their various post-1981 derivatives until the reunion for 1997\u2019s blinding Mr Love Pants, he found the perfect foil for lyrics that would give Oscar at his best a decent run for his bread and honey. Harrow\u2019s answer to Noel Coward could cross swords (and fists and tongues) with anyone and everyone if he had a mind to and his songs are littered with references to his own shortcomings.<\/p>\n
That moments of self love are almost as common as those of self loathing is testament to the brutal honesty he both revelled in and recoiled from \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m up to the armpits in self-esteem\u201d he crows on Delusions of Grandeur from 1980\u2019s Laughter album. Elsewhere there\u2019s an unsettling vulnerability \u2013 \u201cWell thanks for looking in on me\/I\u2019m really glad you came\/Cos it was good, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d on Really Glad You Came from 1984\u2019s 4000 Weeks Holiday.<\/p>\n
The hits:\u00a0Rhythm Stick, What A Waste, Reasons To Be Cheerful, I Want To Be Straight, Superman\u2019s Big Sister,\u00a0how he knew more than knew his way around a pop tune, but the fella had a feeling for a groove as well, messing about with words as their own rhythm stick on the brilliant Mash It Harry from Mr Love Pants, or the deft poetic wordplay of The Bus Driver\u2019s Prayer from 1989\u2019s Apples.<\/p>\n
He pays tribute to his former art school mentor Peter Blake on Peter the Painter and salutes a merry cast of Hogarthian types and tropes from Billericay Dickie, to Byline Browne, Plaistow Patricia, to Percy the Poet, another highlight of the under-rated 4000 Weeks Holiday set.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty of anger as well, not least Spasticus Autisticus, humility (My Old Man) and downright silliness masquerading as social comment (Poo Poo in the Prawn).<\/p>\n
The funk-jazz-soul stew gets a bit treacly after a while, but dipping in and out of this lot over a few days is an absolute joy. Whether on stage, in person or in song, Ian Dury made little effort to disguise his failings. As a man he could be a marvel or a monster. As an artist he made the records he wanted, not what he was told to \u2013 witness the bonus disc of hits, just two of which are actually on albums.<\/p>\n
Showman, spokesman, leviathan, Ian Dury had it all going on\u2026 and much more besides. We don\u2019t see his like very often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ian Dury The Vinyl Collection – Edsel Records Knock me dahn wiv a fevver\u2026! Vose \u2019ard working gells an\u2019 geezas over at Edsel \u2019ave only gorn an\u2019 rahnded up Ian Dury entire back pages. Well, almost. It\u2019s only the albums that came out on vinyl. If I was being a clever bastard I\u2019d say they …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":6559,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,71,74],"tags":[1039,580,1038,906,1041],"series":[],"class_list":["post-6541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hot-plugs","category-music","category-reviews","tag-edsel-records","tag-eyeplug-net","tag-ian-dury","tag-nick-churchill","tag-the-blockheads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6541"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6561,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6541\/revisions\/6561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6541"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=6541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}