Handsome (Kilburn and the High-Roads album)

Handsome
Studio album by Kilburn and the High-Roads
Released	1975
Recorded	1974 at Pye Studios, London
Genre	Rock
Length	40:10
Label	Dawn (Pye)
Producer	Hugh Murphy except "Rough Kids" produced by Chris Thomas
Kilburn and the High-Roads chronology
Handsome!! (1975) Wotabunch! (1977)
Ian Dury chronology
Handsome!! (1975) New Boots and Panties!! (1977)

Professional ratings
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Allmusic	[1]

Handsome is the debut album of the Ian Dury rock group Kilburn and the High-Roads.

The band had apparently originally wanted to call the album No Hand Signals.

The photo on the back cover was the inspiration for the Madness 'duck walk' on the front cover of their album (and single) One Step Beyond.

Track listing

Original album

1. "The Roadette Song" (Dury, Russell Hardy) - 3:25
2. "Pam's Moods" (Dury, Hardy) - 3:40
3. "Crippled With Nerves" (Dury, Hardy) - 3:45
4. "Broken Skin" (Dury, Rod Melvin) - 2:16
5. "Upminster Kid" (Dury, Hardy) - 5:18
6. "Patience (So What?)" (Dury, Hardy) - 3:13
7. "Father" (Dury, Charles Sinclair) - 2:00
8. "Thank You Mum" (Dury, Melvin) - 1:21
9. "Rough Kids" (Dury, Hardy) - 2:26
10. "The Badger and the Rabbit" (Dury, Hardy) - 3:56
11. "The Mumble Rumble and the Cocktail Rock" (Dury, Hardy) - 4:39
12. "The Call-Up" (Dury, Hardy) -

Current Version

1. "Rough Kids"
2. "Billy Bentley (Promenades Himself In London)" (Dury, Hart) - 3:02
3. "Crippled With Nerves"
4. "Huffety Puff" (Dury, Hardy) - 3:14
5. "The Roadette Song"
6. "Pam's Moods"
7. "Broken Skin"
8. "Upminster Kid"
9. "Patience (So What?)"
10. "Father"
11. "Thank You Mum"
12. "The Badger and the Rabbit"
13. "The Mumble Rumble and the Cocktail Rock"
14. "The Call Up"
15. "Who's to Know?" (Dury, Melvin) - 2:18
16. "Back to Blighty" (Dury, Melvin) - 4:13
17. "O.K. Roland" (Dury, Hart) - 2:55
18. "Twenty Tiny Fingers" (Sid Tepper, Roy Bennett) - 3:16

Pye-Dawn re-released the original LP in 1977 following the success of Ian Dury as a solo artist.

In 1998 as part of their 30th Anniversary series Dawn re-issued the album onto CD in a very unconventional way, instead of adding bonus tracks to the end of the album or on a second disc, Dawn decided to re-organize the album's track order to accommodate the missing B-sides as well as adding four previously unreleased tracks including a cover version of Alma Cogan's "Twenty Tiny Fingers" one of only two cover versions Ian Dury has ever officially released, the other being "Girls (Watching)" on his 1980 album Lord Upminster.

Personnel

• Ian Dury - vocals
• Keith Lucas - guitar
• Charles Sinclair - bass
• Rod Melvin - piano
• David Newton-Roboman - drums
• Davey Payne - saxophone

First Mixes

In 1996 Repertoire Records released a 2-CD Ian Dury retrospective Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Reasons to Be Cheerful which included tracks from all of his solo albums and many of his solo singles but instead of including tracks from either Handsome or Wotabunch! they chose to include 10 tracks recorded in 1974 which they claim are the first mixes for some of the tracks from Handsome however the version of "Rough Kids" is almost identical to the version on Wotabunch! (minus the ad-libs), and furthermore their time of recording suggests it is possible the tracks are in fact from the Raft recordings, regardless the ten tracks are "Rough Kids", "You're More Than Fair", "Billy Bentley", "Pam's Moods", "Upminster Kid", "The Roadette Song", "Pam's Moods 2", "The Call-Up" and the wrong titled "The Mumble Rumble" ("The Mumble Rumble & The Cocktail Rock"). "Pam's Moods 2" is another mix of "Pam's Moods".

These tracks show little signs of the smooth, softened, high-produced versions finally released on Handsome and are far similar to the band's live sound and are not mentioned at all in either Ian Dury autobiography and noticeably included "You're More Than Fair", which was not included on the final album.

Further reading

• Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll: The Life Of Ian Dury by Richard Balls, first published 2000, Omnibus Press
• Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song By Song by Jim Drury, first published 2003, Sanctuary Publishing.
• Reasons To Be Cheerful 2-Disc Compilation first released 1996, Repertoire Records
• Booklet to the Dawn's 1998 re-issue of Handsome.

External links

• Handsome (Kilburn and the High-Roads album) at Discogs (list of releases)

References