Biography
In the early 1970s, Kilburn & the High Roads stood among the most highly regarded acts on the London pub rock circuit and launched the career of new wave cult favorite Ian Dury. Contractual obstacles kept the band from issuing much material, yet their wide-ranging approach, eccentric live demeanor, and dry British wit exerted a clear pull on punk and new wave. Dury, already 28, put the group together in late 1970 while lecturing at Canterbury College of Art; the name was taken straight from a street sign for Kilburn High Road. At first the project ran part-time and drew several of Dury’s former students into the ranks. The core lineup placed Dury on lead vocals alongside guitarist Ted Speight, saxophonist George Khan, pianist Russell Hardy, bassist Charlie Hart, and drummer Terry Day, until Davey Payne replaced Khan. The band played its first concert in December 1971 at the Croydon School of Art in London, where the music leaned chiefly on vintage rock and roll yet folded in R&B, jazz, reggae, and music-hall touches, all carried by Dury’s pronounced Cockney accent. Their stage presence proved still more singular: Dury’s childhood-polio limp intensified his peculiar, menacing air, and the remaining members looked and danced like a band of misfits.
By 1973 the group was working steadily across the London pub-rock network and drawing larger crowds than most peers except Dr. Feelgood and Brinsley Schwarz. That July they signed with Warner’s Raft imprint; the revised lineup now included guitarist Keith Lucas—who later joined 999 as Nick Cash—bassist Ian Smith, and drummer David Rohoman, who soon took over from Day. An album was finished in early 1974, only to be abandoned when Warner closed the Raft division. Charlie Sinclair handled bass on those sessions and former Eggs Over Easy drummer George Butler sat behind the kit. After a period without a label, Kilburn & the High Roads linked with Pye’s Dawn subsidiary in late 1974 and cut their first single, “Rough Boys” b/w “Billy Bentley (Promenades Himself in London).” Rohoman returned on drums while longtime pianist Hardy gave way to Rod Melvin. When the debut album Handsome finally appeared in 1975, the band’s earlier momentum had faded, and a Kilburn & the High Roads release could no longer attract the notice it might have commanded a year or two before. Weary of industry frustrations, the group split that summer. Dury assembled a new outfit called Ian Dury & the Kilburns by year’s end, yet it dissolved in summer 1976 after doctors urged him to avoid live shows. He continued writing songs, however, and eventually formed the Blockheads, signed with Stiff Records in 1978, and became a major U.K. success. In the wake of that breakthrough, Warner finally released the long-shelved Kilburn album four years later as Wotabunch.
By 1973 the group was working steadily across the London pub-rock network and drawing larger crowds than most peers except Dr. Feelgood and Brinsley Schwarz. That July they signed with Warner’s Raft imprint; the revised lineup now included guitarist Keith Lucas—who later joined 999 as Nick Cash—bassist Ian Smith, and drummer David Rohoman, who soon took over from Day. An album was finished in early 1974, only to be abandoned when Warner closed the Raft division. Charlie Sinclair handled bass on those sessions and former Eggs Over Easy drummer George Butler sat behind the kit. After a period without a label, Kilburn & the High Roads linked with Pye’s Dawn subsidiary in late 1974 and cut their first single, “Rough Boys” b/w “Billy Bentley (Promenades Himself in London).” Rohoman returned on drums while longtime pianist Hardy gave way to Rod Melvin. When the debut album Handsome finally appeared in 1975, the band’s earlier momentum had faded, and a Kilburn & the High Roads release could no longer attract the notice it might have commanded a year or two before. Weary of industry frustrations, the group split that summer. Dury assembled a new outfit called Ian Dury & the Kilburns by year’s end, yet it dissolved in summer 1976 after doctors urged him to avoid live shows. He continued writing songs, however, and eventually formed the Blockheads, signed with Stiff Records in 1978, and became a major U.K. success. In the wake of that breakthrough, Warner finally released the long-shelved Kilburn album four years later as Wotabunch.
Albums