Happy Soup

As a musician, it can’t be easy operating under the shadow of a more famous parent (just ask Jakob Dylan, Adam Cohen or any Beatles-offspring). Baxter Dury, however, has managed to create a voice for himself that is not only distinct from the imitable cockney growl of his Blockheads-leading dad, Ian, but is also unlike any of his contemporaries. The first real showing of this was on third album Happy Soup. Here, Dury’s sad-eyed, glottal-stopping vignettes are both witty and heartfelt, all told with a vivid imagination and inventive turn of phrase. His geezerish mumble, meanwhile, is perfectly offset by co-vocalist Madelaine Hart and the sparse backing that makes it feel like you’re being told these tales from within a spartanly decorated West London flat.