As frontman of Kilburn and the Highroads, Ian Dury had mild success on the pub rock circuit (and despite more highfalutin references to Laurence Olivier’s Richard III, was where Johnny Rotten stole 90% of his stage act from). Yet by 1977, few would have pegged the then 35-year-old disabled art teacher for stardom. The masterstroke of New Boots And Panties!!! was the pairing of Dury’s thick Essex vowels and the genius wit of his character studies and reflections on life during the fag-end of the ’70s with the deft, cut-above musicality of The Blockheads, with Chas Jankel, Norman Watt-Roy and Charlie Charles as adept at slipping into early rock’n’roll, music hall, funk, and even disco as they were the then voguish punk. One of the great British albums of the era, or any other, for that matter.