British pub rocker and Cockney poet Ian Dury, best known for his work with his band The Blockheads and cheeky cult hits such as "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" and "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll," died Monday at the age of 57 after a four-year battle with colon and liver cancer.

A late bloomer who released his first album at age 35, Dury overcame an early life of hard knocks. When he was only seven years old, Dury was stricken with polio. Despite his handicap, the scrappy lad from East London formed the acclaimed but largely unknown pub-rock band Kilburn & The High Roads.

By the late '70s, Dury formed the eccentric punk, pub-rock, and even disco-influenced Blockheads. The group jumped onto the British charts in 1977 with its debut album "New Boots And Panties!!"

Signed to the seminal punk label Stiff Records, Dury and The Blockheads hit the road on the legendary "Live Stiffs" tour and, along with labelmates such as Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, became an early influence on the new wave movement.

Beloved for memorably strange songs such as "Reasons To Be Cheerful (Pt. 3)" and "What A Waste," Dury not only inspired '80s ska-punk artists such as Madness, but also contemporary U.K. bands such as Blur.

Dury also acted in several films, including Peter Greenaway's "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover" and Roman Polanski's "Pirates." In 1989 he even wrote a stage musical called "Apples."

Ian Dury is survived by his wife and four children. Funeral arrangements were still pending at press time.

• Ian Dury

Ian Dury is alive and well and touring the U.K. starting today. He's playing nine shows to help promote a new Ian Dury and the Blockheads album, "Mr. Love Pants."

• Ian Dury

Ian Dury, the eighties pop singer best known for humorous hits like "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" with his band The Blockheads, has gone public with his fight against cancer. The singer chose his 56th birthday on the weekend to tell the British press that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 1995 and that he found out this past February it had spread to his liver. He told reporters that by telling his story, he hoped to cheer up others fighting the disease.

Dury told the "London Daily Mirror" that while having cancer was like getting hit by a bus for two years, he wasn't in any pain, and was coping quite well. He said the disease "hasn't knocked me sideways," possibly because of his earlier bout with polio. Dury contracted that disease at the age of seven and spent two years in the hospital. He walks with a dragging limp and has limited use of his left hand.

The diminutive Dury - he stands just over 5' tall - lost his first wife to cancer. He recently re-married and has two young boys, ages one and three, in addition to two older children from his first marriage.

Dury was one of the first artists signed to the prestigious Stiff records in 1978. He had three top 10 hits in Britain, "Rhythm Stick," which went to No. 1, "Drugs, Sex and Rock n' Roll," and "Reasons To Be Cheerful." He recorded his last major album in 1984 and launched a successful acting career. He returned to music with an album called "The Bus Driver's Prayer and Other Stories" in 1992.

On the acting front, among other roles, he recently played Geiger in 1995's "Judge Dredd," and Noah in the 1996 film "The Crow: City of Angels."

• Ian Dury