Saturday, March 20, 2010

Charlie Gillett - Honky Tonk 1977 - Ian Dury


I'm sure all fans of the late Charlie Gillett and Ian Dury will enjoy this programmme on Radio London from 1977 - not sure of the exact date recorded just as New Boots & Panties was being released. Dury engages us with some poetry and an eclectic choice of records and some entertaining banter between the two.

Wikipedia says of Dury-

"Dury was born in north-west London at his parents' home at 43 Weald Rise, Harrow Weald, Harrow (although he often pretended, and indeed all but one of his obituaries in the national press stated, that he was born in Upminster, Havering). His father, William, was a bus driver and former boxer, while his mother Margaret (known as Peggy) was a health visitor, the daughter of a Cornish doctor, and granddaughter of an Irish landowner.

William Dury trained with Rolls-Royce to be a chauffeur, and was then absent for long periods, so Peggy Dury took Ian to stay with her parents in Cornwall. After the Second World War, the family moved to Switzerland, where his father chauffeured for a millionaire and the Western European Union. In 1946 Peggy brought Ian back to England and they stayed with her sister, Mary, a physician in Cranham, a small village bordering Upminster. Although he saw his father on visits, they never lived together again.

At the age of seven, he contracted polio; very likely, he believed, from a swimming pool at Southend on Sea during the 1949 polio epidemic. After six weeks in a full plaster cast in Truro hospital, he was moved to Black Notley Hospital, Braintree, Essex, where he spent a year and a half before going to Chailey Heritage Craft School, East Sussex, in 1951. Chailey was a school and hospital for disabled children, and believed in toughening them up, contributing to the observant and determined person Dury became. Chailey taught trades such as cobbling and printing, but Dury's mother wanted him to be more academic, so his aunt Moll arranged for him to enter the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe which he attended until the age of 16 when he left to study painting at Walthamstow Art College, having gained GCE 'O' Levels in English Language, English Literature and Art.

From 1964 he studied art at the Royal College of Art under British artist Peter Blake, and in 1967 took part in a group exhibition, Fantasy and Figuration, alongside Pat Douthwaite, Herbert Kitchen and Stass Paraskos at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.[6] When asked why he did not pursue a career in art, he said, "I got good enough [at art] to realise I wasn't going to be very good."[citation needed] From 1967 he taught art at various colleges in the south of England.

Dury married his first wife, Betty Rathmell, in 1967 and they had two children, Jemima and the recording artist Baxter Dury. Dury divorced Rathmell in 1985, but remained on good terms."


Charlie Gillett - Ian Dury Part 1

Charlie Gillett - Ian Dury Part 2

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this download. Much appreciated!!
Joe

Nick said...

Presumably this 1977 edition of Honky Tonk was broadcast on Sunday October 30th? It appears to have been recorded between the Guildford Civic Hall and Lyceum Stiff tour dates mentioned in the interview.
A fascinating exchange between two greats. Thanks for posting.

Wastedpapiers said...

Thanks for the thumbs up chaps. Thanks also for the date Nick - I was pretty lax about adding exact dates on my cassette sleeves, sometimes not even putting the year!
Very annoyed with myself now that I actually edited out all the conversations on lots of those old shows when I recorded them onto reel to reel in the early days.
I still have a couple more full shows of Honky Tonk though of Errol Dixon and Rico Rodriguez and will hopefully share those at some point.

exilestreet said...

Fantastic! Would you mind if I reposted this with a link at my blog?
Regards/

Wastedpapiers said...

Hi Mona - I don't mind. Feel free to add a link. Cheers.

exilestreet said...

Thanx!
Regards/

David said...

Thank you for this. very much appreciated.

Nick said...

I went to the Guildford Civic Live Stiffs show in October 1977, so it's interesting to hear Ian and Charlie mentioning it as a forthcoming gig a couple of times.
Although Charlie plays a Blondie track during the show, he's clearly not a fan of the wider punk movement. Ian seems move enthusiastic though ('I'm a punk').
Would be great to hear other Honky Tonk shows, if you have time to upload them.
I did once have a tape of Charlie's encounter on Honky Tonk with the stars of the follow-up 1978 Be Stiff tour, but seem to have lost it. I also had a tape of Charlie interviewing Curtis Mayfield, but edited out all of the talking so that I just had a compilation tape of music. Foolish me...

Wastedpapiers said...

Thanks David and Nick. Yes, I was rather foolish too and I regret very much editing as the show progressed. I had an old reel to reel and miked it up to the speaker of a very old valve radio in my studio/prefab I had at the time in Stepney. I used to paint and listen to Honky Tonk at the same time with my finger poised over the pause button if ever the conversations went on too long and for editing out the weather and traffic reports etc. Sometimes I had to go and answer the door or mix some paint etc. and forgot it was on pause and missed big chunks of the show! happy days!

I will uplaod a couple more shows at the end of the week if i get time.
Although Charlie may not have enjoyed the vast majority of punk he did find it fascinating and even had guests like Jello Biafra on - also one of the very few DJ's at the time to play the Sex Pistols.

Russell CJ Duffy said...

I have of late been playing a lot of Ian Dury's music. I still find so much of it highly intelligent and so very funny. His cockney persona fed you a stereotype that was almost instantly underlined by his songs until you really listened to them that is.

I have a couple of Charlie Gillett's books, ones published in the seventies. He is another irreplaceable character and another from a truly golden age of 'pop music'.

Stevie said...

I was wondering if you ever taped any of Radio 1's Star Special series where there'd be a guest DJ every Sunday for two hours ? I remember that Sparks did a show, and Richard & Linda Thompson, and Bowie... Ian Dury too, who played a very eclectic mix of things including Prince Buster, music hall, and (I think) Roland Kirk.

Wastedpapiers said...

Thanks CJ and Stevie. Yes, I have the Ian Dury prog. of his Star Special choices somewhere. I must uplaod it sometime.

Robert Swipe said...

"Yes, I have the Ian Dury prog. of his Star Special choices somewhere. I must uplaod it sometime."

Please do!!

I remember being riveted to Dury's Star special as well as those ny Bowie and (don't laugh, it was quite good) Jimmy Pursey!

Please drop me a line if you ever do post the Dury up -it's becoming somewhat of a holy grail now I've tracked down the Bowie show...

xxx
Bob

Wastedpapiers said...

No problem Bob - thanks for reminding me!

ChrisdeB said...

Any chance of a reup please

Wastedpapiers said...

Yes, if I can find the tape in question.