Captain Sensible

Captain Sensible, born Raymond Ian Burns in Balham in 1954, was one of the founders of the Damned in 1976, the punk outfit that made him famous. He began on bass, moved over to guitar, and made the red beret and white-rimmed shades his uniform long before anyone thought to call it branding.

Then, in 1982, the loon went pop. His album Women and Captains First carried a cheeky, bubblegum take on Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Happy Talk" all the way to the top of the UK charts, a swerve that still sounds gloriously absurd coming from a punk guitarist. "Wot", from the same record, was the stranger and better record: a rubbery, half-rapped novelty with a groove built for the dancefloor, and it's the one that has stuck around on the countdowns. "Glad It's All Over" kept the hits coming into 1984.

He still plays with the Damned, and he has also turned up in the Sensible Gray Cells. In 2006 he even launched his own political outfit, the Blah! Party, which is about as Sensible a move as anyone could have predicted.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.