Under the management of Andrew King and Peter Jenner (the original managers of Pink Floyd) Ian Dury and the Blockheads quickly gained a reputation as one of the top live new wave music acts.
Their first single, "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", marked Dury's Stiff debut and although it was banned by the BBC it was named Single of the Week by NME on its release.
It was soon followed by the album New Boots and Panties!!,
which was eventually to achieve platinum status. (
Although it has been claimed that Dury coined the phrase "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", there is evidence that it was already in common use and a very similar phrase had been used by Australian band Daddy Cool for the title of their 1972 second album Sex, Dope & Rock'n'Roll: Teenage Heaven.)
An parallel precursor is the longstanding and widely used phrase, wine, women and song.
The tune is based on part of Charlie Haden's bass solo on "Ramblin'" on Ornette Coleman's 1959 album Change of the Century.

Dury and the band built up a dedicated following in the UK and other countries and scored several hit singles, including "What a Waste", "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick" (which was a UK number one at the beginning of 1979, selling just short of a million copies) and "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" (number three in the UK in 1979).

The band's second album, Do It Yourself, was released in June 1979 in a Barney Bubbles-designed sleeve of which there were over a dozen variations, all based on samples from the Crown wallpaper catalogue.
Bubbles also designed the Blockhead logo, which received international acclaim and which continues to be used by the band as, for example, on their Live in Colchester 2004 DVD.

The hit single "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" was notably not included, however, on the original release of the album.
The single and its accompanying music video featured a Davey Payne sax solo with dual saxophones, in evident homage to jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who had made this his trademark technique.

Dury's lyrics are a distinctive combination of lyrical poetry, word play, observation of British everyday (working-class) life, acute character sketches, and vivid, earthy sexual humour. "
This is what we find ... [H]ome improvement expert Harold Hill of Harold Hill, Of do-it-yourself dexterity and double-glazing skill, Came home to find another gentleman's kippers in the grill, So he sanded off his winkle with his Black & Decker drill."
The song "Billericay Dickie" continues this sexual content, rhyming "I had a love affair with Nina, In the back of my Cortina" with "A seasoned-up hyena, Could not have been more obscener".

The Blockheads' sound drew from its members' diverse musical influences, which included jazz, rock and roll, funk, and reggae, and Dury's love of music hall.
Under the management of Andrew King and Peter Jenner (the original managers of Pink Floyd) Ian Dury and the Blockheads quickly gained a reputation as one of the top live new wave music acts. Their first single, "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", marked Dury's Stiff debut and although it was banned by the BBC it was named Single of the Week by NME on its release. It was soon followed by the album New Boots and Panties!!, which was eventually to achieve platinum status. (Although it has been claimed that Dury coined the phrase "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", there is evidence that it was already in common use and a very similar phrase had been used by Australian band Daddy Cool for the title of their 1972 second album Sex, Dope & Rock'n'Roll: Teenage Heaven.) An parallel precursor is the longstanding and widely used phrase, wine, women and song. The tune is based on part of Charlie Haden's bass solo on "Ramblin'" on Ornette Coleman's 1959 album Change of the Century.
Dury and the band built up a dedicated following in the UK and other countries and scored several hit singles, including "What a Waste", "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick" (which was a UK number one at the beginning of 1979, selling just short of a million copies) and "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" (number three in the UK in 1979).
The band's second album, Do It Yourself, was released in June 1979 in a Barney Bubbles-designed sleeve of which there were over a dozen variations, all based on samples from the Crown wallpaper catalogue. Bubbles also designed the Blockhead logo, which received international acclaim and which continues to be used by the band as, for example, on their Live in Colchester 2004 DVD.
The hit single "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" was notably not included, however, on the original release of the album. The single and its accompanying music video featured a Davey Payne sax solo with dual saxophones, in evident homage to jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who had made this his trademark technique.
Dury's lyrics are a distinctive combination of lyrical poetry, word play, observation of British everyday (working-class) life, acute character sketches, and vivid, earthy sexual humour. "This is what we find ... [H]ome improvement expert Harold Hill of Harold Hill, Of do-it-yourself dexterity and double-glazing skill, Came home to find another gentleman's kippers in the grill, So he sanded off his winkle with his Black & Decker drill." The song "Billericay Dickie" continues this sexual content, rhyming "I had a love affair with Nina, In the back of my Cortina" with "A seasoned-up hyena, Could not have been more obscener".
The Blockheads' sound drew from its members' diverse musical influences, which included jazz, rock and roll, funk, and reggae, and Dury's love of music hall.
The Blockheads