by Will Birch
In March 1973, the Kilburns ‘came off the road’ and went into Jackson’s Studio in Rickmansworth for ‘a day’s banging’. The demos they recorded that day with engineer Vic Maile are reckoned to be among the best tracks the group ever achieved, but the tapes are lost. Another session, at Island Studios in Basing Street with producer Muff Winwood, was less successful, but the group was slowly gathering material with which to approach the record labels. Charlie and Gordon started shopping around and also encouraged Ian and Russell to come up with more original material. ‘Ian would type up the words and come out with ideas about how the song should go, suggesting the meter,’ recalls Russell. ‘I tailor-made my tunes in order that Ian could put them over vocally. That’s how I had to learn to write songs. I could play piano and knock up a tune, but I told Ian I thought I was a shit piano player. He replied, “It doesn’t matter!”’
Ian’s next priority was the all-important group publicity shot. He orchestrated the ‘bus stop’ pose for the photographs taken in the garden at Gordon Nelki’s house in Stockwell, in front of a large white sheet draped against the rear wall. Mick Hill, who was behind the lens, recalls that the bus stop idea originated from Charlie Gillett saying on the radio: ‘If you go to the Tally Ho and see some people hanging about as if they’re waiting for a bus, that’ll be the Kilburns.’ The same gag would be rolled out a number of times in the coming years to help emphasize the group’s extraordinary physical characteristics.
Ian would tinker with the line-up to maximize its visual appeal but, more importantly, to remain in control. As unchallenged leader, he was the conduit to the group’s management and therefore in a position to influence business decisions, although he claimed he wasn’t interested in record deals. He told me: ‘I wasn’t that ambitious beyond doing it properly within itself. I would have liked to have done the Albert Hall but I knew I wasn’t that good. What first made me really wanna do it was seeing bands at the Royal College of Art. I saw the Pretty Things a lot in 1963, it was all right, but I thought I could do it better.’
Equipped with Ian’s ‘WEM Vendetta’ p.a. system, the Kilburns returned to the live circuit, but there were rumblings in the ranks. Ian already felt threatened by Keith Lucas, the only other Kilburn with front man potential, who was given to unexpectedly thrusting forward during one of his manic guitar solos, momentarily stealing the limelight from Ian. ‘We were well aware we had a couple of good-looking boys in the band,’ said Ian, ‘but Keith Lucas? I never let him anywhere near a microphone!’ Although Lucas had to be reined in, he was a relatively minor High Road, happy to defer to Ian on most group matters. Ian was never quite sure where he stood with Davey, the wayward sax man, whose menacing presence rendered him immune from bullying. Conversely, Russell was a poodle whom Ian could easily dominate: shy and unsure, yet bursting with composing talent and practical skills. Russell mildly accepted his role as the group’s dogsbody and everyone was grateful.
But bass player Charlie Hart was showing too much muscle. He had his own ideas about where the Kilburns might be going, and even if it was precisely the same destination that Ian had in mind, Ian could not possibly share the glory with a mere bass player, lest anyone should perceive the vision to be less than 100 per cent Dury. ‘Me and Charlie Hart had a parting of the ways,’ said Ian. ‘It was a kind of leadership struggle. I just knew that I wanted to do it a certain way. It wasn’t musical differences or anything because it was really early days. We didn’t have any musical differences.’
As the Kilburns’ musical arranger and owner of the ex-post office van that was used to cart the group’s equipment, Charlie Hart was a one-man power base who would confidently challenge Ian on various issues, unaware of the singer’s true agenda. Ian’s priorities didn’t encompass musical arrangements and mundane matters such as transport, providing of course that his own personal ride was assured. He was more interested in cultivating the look of his group. Consequently, he was secretly hankering after the return of Humphrey Ocean to the ranks of Kilburn and the High Roads.
Although still at Canterbury studying art, Humphrey was desperately trying to improve his bass playing and constantly kept in touch with Ian. ‘He came down to Whitstable and took me for a walk along the beach,’ recalls Humphrey. ‘By this time, the Kilburns were becoming a bit of an item. Ian told me: “Charlie Hart is ambitious and so am I . . . but it’s not the same . . . I want you to be in the band.” The Kilburns were something of a state of mind. I didn’t want to be a musician but I didn’t mind being on stage and dressing up. I loved that part of it, the artiness of it. I said yes.’
With Humphrey onside, Ian plotted his next move. Ian’s problem was his insecurity among ‘musos’, as he referred to them. Musicians, he believed, were insiders with whom he was unable to communicate. Beginners like Humphrey were impressionable enough, subservient even, but the experienced players had their own language and in-jokes – a different kind of power. Power-sharing was not on Ian’s agenda, and so he decided that Charlie Hart had to be fired in as public a manner as possible.
The Kilburns had spent the afternoon rehearsing in the crypt at St Matthew’s Church in Brixton, after which they returned to the Nelkis’ house in Groveway and convened in the kitchen. As Andra Nelki quietly prepared supper, Ian suddenly exclaimed: ‘Charlie, you’re out of the band.’ It was crude, yet unequivocal. In one dramatic moment, Ian had asserted his authority and sent a shiver through the ranks. It came as a shock to everyone, especially Gordon Nelki and Charlie Gillett, who thought they were managing something that was fixed but now discovered just how fragile groups could be. ‘I never knew Ian’s logic in choosing musicians,’ says Gillett. ‘He definitely went for the look as well as for the competence. If musicians were not prepared to kow-tow to Ian, he would rather not have them around. He needed to be the boss and he needed to take arbitrary decisions and not have people argue with him.’
‘Ian kicked me out,’ confirms Charlie Hart. ‘It was his group, but if I work with somebody and put a lot into it, I want that to be acknowledged. Maybe my price was too high in terms of what I wanted Ian to acknowledge, but it was more like a strategic move on his part. Humphrey looked great dressed up in all that stuff that I wouldn’t go near. Ian’s attitude was: “The band is a tableau.” He’d had a very profound involvement in the Mick Hill photo shoots and was always on to me about my hair, which he thought was too long. I didn’t have the look he wanted and I wasn’t prepared to let him mould me.’
Following Hart’s dismissal, Davey Payne walked out in sympathy. For a moment it looked as if others might follow. Threatened with mutiny, Ian announced that the Kilburns would be put on ice for the foreseeable future, or at least until Humphrey had finished his studies at Canterbury. ‘Charlie and Davey pulled away,’ said Ian. ‘I was quite pleased because I’d sooner work with Humphrey than Charlie at that point, and Humphrey was coming to the end of his final year, I think, and he was free to be in the band. Humphrey really wanted to join. He had been in an early line-up with a green Gretsch guitar, a boiler suit with nothing on underneath and his hair in pigtails. His guitar wasn’t plugged in, but he looked so great on stage. And I definitely wanted the group to look sprauncey, giving it a bit.’
The Kilburns reconvened with Humphrey on bass, but Davey Payne had gone missing. With live dates fast approaching and no sax player, Gordon Nelki sent out a search party. ‘Had anyone seen him on the Underground . . . or in the pubs?’ wondered Gordon. ‘For a couple of weeks we went out looking for Davey Payne like people today look for teenagers who have left home. It took a while to find him, but when he rejoined and Humphrey was in it became the spectacular visual band.’
But first Davey had to be convinced that returning to what was now clearly Ian’s band was the right move. A discussion took place, again in the kitchen at Groveway. Ian summoned all of his persuasive powers to assure Davey that the Kilburns would soon be recording and securing a contract with a major label. Davey consented.
‘T
his was the final piece in the jigsaw,’ says Humphrey. ‘I was walking past the door when Davey said, “Yeah, I’ll give it another try.” I came into the kitchen and said, “Yeah! We’ve got a band!” and I could see Ian going, “Ssh . . .” in case it frightened Davey off. We now had the new line-up, ready to go, and we started rehearsing.’
As those who have tasted a modicum of success in the precarious world of pop will attest, to keep your feet on the lowest, yet crucially important rungs of the ladder, it helps to be close to the action. For Ian, this meant ‘the smoke’ and the dim lights and grubby venues of the capital’s pub rock circuit. By 1973, he knew London like the back of his permanently gloved left hand. He loved the city and was thrilled when the city reciprocated. He found celebrity intoxicating. ‘Every night, you’d always meet somebody who knew what you were trying to achieve,’ said Ian. ‘That encouraged me. It was like sharing a secret. We used to go down all right, but you do in a real good atmosphere. When people discover you they sometimes think they own you and they get quite defensive. I remember getting out of the motor at Scratchwood one night and being recognized. Thank you, London!’
In July, after a three-month hiatus, Kilburn and the High Roads returned to the boards with dates at the Kensington and, on 2 August, their debut at Dingwalls Dancehall. Dingwalls had recently opened in Camden Town, offering extended drinking hours and bistro dining. Canoodlers and surreptitious drug users could take advantage of the club’s countless nooks and crannies, and everyone enjoyed its continental canteen atmosphere. Although not a typical pub rock venue, it booked many of the up-and-coming groups and quickly became the haunt of the in-crowd.
‘After playing about nine months in London there were about five pubs you could go in and get a free drink,’ recalled Ian. ‘Dingwalls was like that. I’d go there when I was off-duty and it was nice. The other really good thing is you change back into your civvies and you can go back into the audience, you don’t hang about round the back. Not only do you meet a lot of nice people that way, you get a lot of feedback, it’s shared. You’re not elevated in any way. All those aspects were good. At thirty-one, I was quite fond of myself, with what I looked like. I was quite confident about the glamour quotient.’
Unlike the pubs, Dingwalls was a hunting ground of the seasoned ‘rock chick’ – typically a summer-of-love survivor in her mid-twenties, a veteran of many a drug-crazed night in the Speakeasy carousing with superstars of the Keith Moon variety. This epitome of groupie sophistication was now turning her attention to more humble prey. ‘Ian said they were always fascinated by his disability,’ says Russell Hardy. ‘He used to work on that angle and it always paid off.’ Keith Lucas adds, ‘These girls were groupies and Ian wanted to be popular. He thought of himself as incredibly handsome and was quite a vain person. He used to keep himself clean and would never be seen in public looking rough. I can remember being on a train with him once and he told me: “Sit up, the girls like it if you sit up with your back straight.”’
Ian had grown accustomed to the odd night away, but as the pressure increased he spent less time with his family. After a sweaty gig in London, he would invariably camp at Keith Lucas’s flat or Gordon Nelki’s house, which now served as the group’s HQ. The basement kitchen was its nerve centre and roadies Mick Hill and Paul Tonkin slept in the roof space of the attached garage, keeping an eye on the blue Commer van, its registration plate bearing the letters KUW. This, declared Ian, stood for ‘Kilburns Under Way’!
Back in Wingrave, Betty’s life was getting harder. She and Ian had always lived hand-to-mouth, relying on little more than his sporadic teaching income and disability benefit. Now, his absence added to the strain. Occasionally, he would return home, explaining to Betty his need to be in London, where the Kilburns were ‘happening’. Betty understood why the group was important to Ian, but she was becoming increasingly suspicious of his motives. She knew only too well that most rock musicians behaved like animals and that many of them – even those at the bottom of the food chain – were at their wildest when casual sex was on the menu.
The wave of female attention in the clubs posed no problem to Ian, the incorrigible ladies’ man. As a child he had been surrounded by fussing, caring aunties and had become instinctively sympathetic towards the opposite sex and generally keen to please. He was especially fond of girls who were amused by his latest rhyming couplet and he sought their approval. But none of them measured up to Betty, the artist and hardworking homemaker of whom he was still in awe. She was not one to stand in the way of ‘progress’ and allowed him to indulge his musical whims, but while Betty was in Buckinghamshire, immersed in her paintings and running the home on a shoestring, Ian was in London, making the scene. Highly susceptible to female flattery and driven by the prospect of fulfilling some long-held erotic fantasies, he exploited every opportunity and slammed his marriage into reverse.
8
No Hand Signals
North London, 6 August 1973. At the Lord Nelson, a Victorian pub in the Holloway Road, music lovers could drink at the bar yet keep one eye on the band via the venue’s closed-circuit TV system. A single camera was trained on the stage, where Kilburn and the High Roads were unveiling their new song, ‘You’re More Than Fair’. A lilting saxophone hook punctuated the arrangement as the singer told us that his girlfriend had ‘a gorgeous bum’ and ‘titties’ that were ‘nice and small’. As he delivered his saucy story, he was unaware that he was about to meet his dream date/soulmate.
Amongst those digging the Kilburns that night was Denise Roudette, a nineteen-year-old goddess of Anglo-Trinidadian extraction. ‘I hadn’t heard of Kilburn and the High Roads,’ recalls Denise. ‘I’d always been in tune with music and wondered where the sound was coming from. I looked up at the TV monitor. The singer had this huge head – he looked triangular in shape, but the visuals didn’t match the music. I left my friends at the bar and went to investigate.’
Ian was certainly smitten with Denise when she approached him in the break. He admired her exotic skin tone and quick, sparkling eyes. She was physically more striking than anyone he had ever met and hip to music too, having been raised in South Africa, where, as a child, she witnessed concerts by visiting jazz stars like Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong. At the age of thirteen, while living in Blackpool, she had attended a Jimi Hendrix concert and briefly met the famed guitarist at the stage door. It had left an indelible impression on her, besotted as she now was with music and music makers.
Denise, who was at college studying dentistry, was spending the summer holidays with friends in London when she wandered into the Lord Nelson with no knowledge of the music on offer. ‘I thought the Kilburns were great, but what really got me was that they weren’t pretending, or putting on an act. They weren’t trying to look odd; they were authentic. They were living their music and they owned their look. I was attracted to Ian, I guess, but it was not a physical attraction. I was attracted to the vibe, how free he was. He wasn’t pretentious; he was simply himself. I don’t know if that was because he’d had to cope with his physical disabilities. I had this feeling that the Kilburns were his students, which in a sense they were.’
The group returned to the stage and performed ‘The Roadette Song’, a staple of their repertoire for a year or more. When Denise heard Ian sing ‘She’s a very high Roadette’ in a cod Jamaican accent, it was no surprise that she thought she had heard her own family name – ‘Roudette’. It would be the perfect conversation piece. ‘We were all around Ian because he took it on himself to be a teacher,’ says the eloquent Denise, but in a rock ’n’ roll twist on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion – the play in which an ageing professor coaches a young cockney lass on the finer points of spoken English – Ian would be teaching Denise the language of the gutter.
Since the Kilburns’ early days, Ian had been slowly establishing his public persona through the seemingly autobiographical nature of his lyrics. To the outside world, he was one of us, ‘a geezer’, a streetwise
barrow boy, a walking encyclopaedia of East End humour and cockney rhyming slang. To those who knew him well, it was something of an act. ‘I was a bit cynical when he later became the thinking man’s cockney,’ says grammar school contemporary Warwick Prior. ‘“Mr Apples and Pears” is bollocks.’ Ian’s cousin, Margaret Webb, agrees that his cockney persona was just that. ‘His mum was what my mother always called “a lady” and she spoke very nicely, as did her sisters. Ian did not grow up in the East End. He was born in Harrow, he lived in Upminster and he went to school in High Wycombe. There was no reason that he spoke the way he did. It was put on as part of the image, I think.’ Childhood friend Barry Anderson adds: ‘I could never understand where he acquired his unbelievable cockney accent, because when I was with him, he spoke like me, fairly well in fact. Maybe a little bit “London”, but nothing like the accent he acquired in later years.’
Although Ian hadn’t yet crafted his adaptation of Lonnie Donegan’s ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’, he did speak reverentially of his dad Bill, his working-class hero who had pulled himself up by his boot straps. Ian remained less forthcoming about his mother’s side of the family as he romanced his London background, but the audience was prepared to believe him because of his arch delivery and the wealth of detail that peppered his lyrics. ‘I’m cocky-dick about my words,’ boasted Ian some twenty years later. ‘I always thought that I didn’t have any competition. I’m the best in the world by a hundred miles. In a nutshell, I think I’m shit hot.’