Apples (album)
| Apples | ||||
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| Studio album by Ian Dury | ||||
| Released |
EUOctober 1989 JP 10 February 1990 RE 31 October 2011 |
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| Recorded | July 1989 | |||
| Genre | New Wave | |||
| Length | 40:19 | |||
| Label | WEA | |||
| Producer | Ian Horne, Ian Dury, Mick Gallagher | |||
| Ian Dury chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Apples | ||||
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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Apples is a 1989 album by Ian Dury, it was the soundtrack to his short-lived stage-show of same name though it was recorded before the show opened, it contains twelve of the twenty tracks from the show. The album was reissued on 31 October by Edsel.
Apples was a stage show written by Dury with music co-written by Blockheads member Mick Gallagher on the request of Max Stafford-Clark. The show opened for ten days of previews on 6 October 1989 and to the public 12 days later, all the shows were held at the Royal Court Theatre in London and were directed by Simon Curtis, who Dury had worked with previously in earlier stage work.
The show only lasted 10 weeks before closing and reviews were not favourable nor were they for the Album of same name. The most common complaint about the show was Dury's script. Gallagher echoed this sentiment in Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll: The Life of Ian Dury. The play was about Byline Brown, a journalist played by Dury himself investigating a corrupt minister Hugo Sinister.
In the original Ian Dury & The Kilburns version of Apples, the stall owner’s name is Baxter, and the dancer from Soho's name is Jemima, this was changed to Simpson and Delilah for the final version, Baxter and Jemima are the names of Ian Dury's eldest children.
WEA gave Dury and Gallagher £70,000 for recording costs. According to Gallagher in Song By Song, most of the recording was done for £25,000 with Ian Dury's vocals costing around £30,000 on their own. Dury was still drinking heavily at this time but following this session his behaviour would steadily improve. Recording took place at Liquidator and Westside Studios under the production of Ian Horne, who had been Dury's sound engineer on his Stiff Records releases Do It Yourself and Laughter. It was not made by the 'Apple Blossom Orchestra' that played on the stage shows (they were formed after the album's completion) though some players on the record were part of that band.
In addition to the show's leading lady Frances Ruffelle who sung vocals on "Looking For Harry", "Game On" and the humorous duet "Love Is All", Dury's long-time friend and former Stiff Records artist Wreckless Eric also appeared to perform nearly all of the vocals for "PC Honey"', a song reportedly inspired by a policewoman who came backstage after an argument between Dury and his then girlfriend while touring with The Music Students to promote 4,000 Weeks' Holiday, his previous album five years earlier. Much of the band Kokomo also appear on backing vocals.
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