Chaz Jankel
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Jankel before a gig with The Blockheads at Band on the Wall, 2016
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| Birth name | Charles Jeremy Jankel | |
| Also known as | Chas Jankel | |
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10 November 1954 Stanmore, Middlesex, England |
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| Years active | 1971–present | |
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| Website | chazjankel |
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Charles Jeremy "Chaz" Jankel (born 10 November 1954) is an English singer, songwriter, arranger, composer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer.
In a music career spanning more than 40 years, Jankel came to prominence in the late 1970s as the guitarist and keyboardist of the rock band Ian Dury and The Blockheads. With Dury, Jankel co-wrote some the band's best-known songs including "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick" and "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3".
In addition to his work with the Blockheads, Jankel has had a solo career which has resulted in nine studio albums. He has a long list of credits as both a performer and as songwriter.
Charles Jeremy Jankel was born on 16 April 1952, in Stanmore,Middlesex, England to a Jewish family. Inspired by Lonnie Donegan, he started to learn how to play the Spanish guitar at age 7, and then went on to study the piano. He attended the boarding school Mill Hill School and became a fan of the American rock, funk and soul band Sly and the Family Stone during his time there. Jankel's fondness for this style was later responsible for much of the funk influence on the Blockheads' music and also influenced Jankel's solo career. As a student at the art college Saint Martin's School of Art he played with a folk rock band called Byzantium from 1972 to 1973.
In 1973, Chaz Jankel contributed a track titled "Let's Go" to Long John Baldry's album Good to Be Alive. He then joined the folk rock band Jonathan Kelly's Outside and worked on their only album ...Waiting on You, released in early 1974. Jankel first started working with Ian Dury as part of the pub rock band Kilburn and the High Roads in the early part of the 1970s. He went on to work with Dury on albums such as 1977's New Boots and Panties!! and the Blockheads' albums including the 1979 release Do It Yourself before leaving the band. In 1981, Jankel joined Dury again, without the Blockheads, for his second solo album Lord Upminster, which spawned the US Top 40 dance hit "Spasticus Autisticus", which he co-wrote.
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