Formation and Early Years
In 1974 Radio Caroline's Ronan O'Rahilly set up the pop group The Loving Awareness Band, comprising John Turnbull (guitar) and Mick Gallagher (keyboards) both formerly of 1960s psychedelic rock band Skip Bifferty with the session musicians Norman Watt-Roy (bass) and Charlie Charles (born Hugh Glenn Mortimer Charles, Guyana 1945) (drums). In 1976 The Loving Awareness Band released their only album Loving Awareness (ML001) on O'Rahilly's label More Love Records. The album has appeared on CD more than once, although these reissues have been sourced from a mint vinyl pressing rather than from the original master tapes.
The Loving Awareness Band broke up in 1977 and Watt-Roy and Charles joined a new band being formed by Ian Dury, who had begun writing songs with pianist and guitarist Chaz Jankel (the brother of noted music video, TV, commercial and film director Annabel Jankel). With Jankel fashioning Dury's lyrics into number of songs, the two began recording with Charles, Watt-Roy, Gallagher, Turnbull and former Kilburn and the High-roads saxophonist Davey Payne. An album was recorded, but was of no interest to major record labels. Next door to Dury's manager's office, however, was the newly formed Stiff Records, a perfect home for Dury's maverick style.
The band was invited by Stiff to join the "Live Stiffs Tour", and the band Ian Dury and the Blockheads was born, with the name ostensibly taken from the song of the same name which portrayed a drunken Essex Untermensch stereotype:
| “ | They've got womanly breasts under pale mauve vests Shoes like dead pigs' noses |
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—from "Blockheads" |
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The tour, which also featured Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric and Larry Wallis, was a great success, and Stiff launched a concerted Ian Dury marketing campaign.
Read more about this topic: The Blockheads, History
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