OOh! Ian Dury! I was interduced to him by a friend in Scotland... one of my friend's all-time favorites. He sent me Dury's "reasons to be Happy" on a compilation CD of fun songs...

I'll have to look up "Spasticus Autisticus," and ask my friend if he's heard it.

And you're right... there are woefully few visibly disabled performers of any kind, though especially few singers.

I remember a time a few (or was it more like a dozen?) years ago when a pop singer (Don't remember who -- Celine Dionne, maybe?) fell off the stage, and injured her back. And the popular media was full of buzz about whether she would walk again, or whether it would end her career.

I couldn't help thinking: "Why does it have to, if she still sings well?"

I know pop singers these days are expected to put on flamboyant stage shows, with pyrotechnics, glitzy costumes, laser lights, film clips and, yes, dancing on stage (which is how she fell off, in the first place). But the way concert tickets are priced these days, most fans never see a concert in their life.

And yes: putting out a music video is as commercially required as putting out a single for the radio play, these days. But those are so dream-like and filled with special effects that a wheelchair, or even a cane (which is just as unthinkable in American pop music, it seems) would barely be noticed.

And even if people did notice it, I have faith in the basic common sense of most of them to still apreciate the music, first.