Liverpool Music Week picks part 4: Baxter Dury

Those lucky enough to catch Hit Me! The Life and Rhymes of Ian Dury at the Everyman last year will have been reminded (if they needed so) of just how immense a talent rock’n’roll wordsmith Ian Dury was.

A hard act to follow? You better believe it. So probably best not to even try, then, eh Julian Lennon?

Refreshingly, Baxter Dury eschews any embarrassing Jeremy Kyle-style on-stage DNA tests, and works his own laid back, languid and, yes, decidedly London groove.

His third album, Happy Soup, stitches bar-room blues, melancholic pop and warm, life-affirming vignettes on life’s rich - and occasionally messy - tapestry into his most satisfying collection yet.

So, actually, in doing exactly his own thing, and doing it with humour, soul and intelligence, it really is a case of ‘like father, like son’ after all.

DNA. It’s a bugger. You can run, but you can’t hide.

Baxter Dury,
with Loved Ones, 5 November
Mojo, Back Berry Street