The Vault: Chas and Dave - Ain't No Pleasing You

Very saddened to hear about the passing of Chas Hodges, prolific musician and one half of the legendary duo Chas and Dave. Despite fighting a brave battle against cancer, Hodges died peacefully today in his sleep from organ failure, aged 74. Chas and Dave's unique musical style was branded as "rockney", a mixture of "pub singalong, music-hall humour, boogie-woogie piano and pre-Beatles rock 'n' roll". They scored eight Top 40 hit singles and had nine charting albums. In October 2013 they released That's What Happens, their first studio album in 18 years, and earlier this year they issued their final album 'A Little Bit Of Us'. The duo's final gig was at Hyde Park as part of the British Summer Time festival. 

Chas and Dave were undoubtedly an influence on Britpop, and most particularly, Blur. Their rivals Oasis joked that the Essex band were "the Chas and Dave of pop" like it was some sort of insult. My favorite Chas and Dave moment has to be watching a repeat of their 1983 'Xmas Knees Up' TV show, recorded in a pub and rebroadcast on Channel 5 during the last couple of years. One of my favorite bits of musical trivia is that Chas actually appears on the Eminem hit 'My Name Is', which samples the Labi Siffre track 'I Got The', a song that features guitar from Hodges when he was a session musician in the 70s.

In tribute to Chas, here's the duo's hit single Ain't No Pleasing You', taken from the album Mustn't Grumble. The song was released as a single on 7 March 1982 and entered the UK Singles Chart at #62, before climbing gradually to Number 2 and remaining on the chart for 11 weeks.