Biography
Baxter Dury (51) is not the man who walks into the SK Doorslaar soccer canteen and tells a pull-my-finger joke to the first boozer he meets. What Dury is is a thoroughly English dandy who combines the coolness of Bowie with the coolness of Serge Gainsbourg. What about you? You wish you were him. Baxter Dury is also a singer, more specifically the type of singer who also effectively makes records. And what records! Do a search somewhere online to see if you can still find reviews of LPs "Prince of tears" (2017) or "The night chancers" (2020) and you will promptly treat yourself to the man's entire discography. Why? Because reviewers and his hard-core fans can't choose between bigotry and idolization, and so every review or testimonial sounds like a sales pitch you're somewhat happy to tumble into. His records are filled with radio hits for a niche station that broadcasts only at night. For inspiration he draws on the already mentioned David and Serge but we hear masses of other masters like Leonard Cohen, The Divine Comedy or Scott Walker, in addition to hopelessly romantic movies, hopelessly romantic but dark films, French pop and electronica. And although he is not averse to the most modern sounds, time and again you get caught up in that elusive nostalgic feeling for something that may never have been. And, if all that doesn't interest you, you either fall in love with his delightful melodies or have to lie on your stomach for a while because of his timbre that shatters your steel wall protective against desperate infatuation. We all got to know Dury in 1977 as the little guy on one of the most beautiful album covers of all time. Well, the toddler has become a middle-aged man and is anno 2023 one of the last remaining Great Romantic Troubadours, in a world where a severe lack of beauty is quietly to be lamented.