THE PRODIGIOUS SON

“I was brought up by two ambitious artistic people,” says Baxter Dury. (Photo by Tom Beard)

A quarter century since the passing of his father — beloved Cockney poet, punk, and actor Ian Dury — there is much that unites the sound of vocalist-composer Baxter Dury to his dad. And more that does not. Especially now that Baxter’s dry, witty brand of sing-speak is married to the bubbling-over electronic music of last Fall’s Allbarone.

“It’s a forensic question, innit?” poses Baxter about connecting the dots between father and son. “There is a London growl to my voice that’s deep. I don’t sing. He didn’t sing. We share outsider music. Is all that by accident? Of course not. I was brought up by two ambitious artistic people [his mom is portraitist Elizabeth Rathmell]. His influence is there. When I work, I often think about his delivery and timing, not all the time. Do the words, ‘nepo baby’ frighten me? No. I love it. So, where do you go from there?”

Where it went, first, were charmed post-punk albums filled with nuanced character studies and tall tales, on 2005’s Floor Show, 2014’s It’s a Pleasure and 2017’s Prince of Tears. 

Extending his formats from brusque Brit-pop and gruff soul-hop into dance music, he enjoyed “seeing people move” when testing the waters of electronica during collaborations with Étienne de Crécy in 2018, and Fred Again for 2021’s “Baxter (These are My Friends)”.

Aiding Dury on Allbarone is Paul Epworth, the multi-platinum producer for Adele and Florence & the Machine, who met Baxter after a 2024 Glastonbury performance and pushed for collaboration. 

“I had songs, but Paul didn’t listen to them, as he had the ideas. He ignored me in a polite way,” says Dury with a laugh. “Confused initially, I listened for once.” 

The results on Allbarone are deadpan tracks such as the Pet Shop Boys-like “Kubla Khan” and the rudely repetitive “Return of the Sharp Heads”.“I just reached out and snatched the most poignant things near to me — mostly confessional, really abstract – in response to the music he threw at me,” says Baxter. “It was all very unedited. It was all very freeing.”