Ian Dury

This was an unposed shot taken backstage at the Brighton Top Rank just before Ian was due to go onstage with The Blockheads. I’d known Ian from when he played drums in Wreckless Eric’s band... read more before he signed to Stiff Records. I was 16 then and he was always encouraging me to take photos. He was a lovely man and a great subject to photograph. His presence, style and humour were so distinctively him. He is greatly missed.

We all knew Ian was terminally ill and it was only a matter of time before rock music lost a unique and much loved character. I was honoured to photograph him and The Blockheads in the dressing room of... read more the Shepherds Bush Empire. Surrounded by musicians and crew who loved him, he was in fine fettle that day.

The late Ian Dury, was a raconteur, humourist, diamond geezer, early rap artist and musical wizard. He was a storyteller who made a virtue of local memories about growing up in Upminster in Essex, whilst... read more avoiding sentimentality and parochialism. He is forever etched in our collective conscious for Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll and also because he refused to let his disabilities deter him. Before his untimely death he had a late renaissance, beginning with the release of a compilation called Reasons To Be Cheerful (followed by Mr Lovepants and New Boots and Panties revisited). I remember him best for his irascible humour, colourful stories and irrepressible penchant for word play, including ghastly puns, spoonerisms, bon mots and the like. Reasons To Be Cheerful clearly invites Dury like visual jokes, i.e. the image itself would be like a reason to make one cheerful. Our collection included a gift horse - a horse with a large ribbon tied around its belly, a princely toad, a deer with an eye on it - as in Idea and a seahorse being ridden by a human jockey going nowhere fast, the jockey exuding bubbles and using a whip to spur his steed onwards. Silly I know, but it makes me smile.

Ian Dury backstage at Dingwalls, Camden Town 1973. Ian was such a lovely guy and everybody adored him. He was so gutsy and courageous.

Ian Dury live at Dingwalls.