In a music career spanning more than 40 years, he 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 of the band's best-known songs including "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick" and "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3".

Inspired by skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan, he started to learn how to play the Spanish guitar at age 7, and then went on to study the piano.

[9] In 1981, Jankel joined Dury again, without the Blockheads, for his second solo studio album Lord Upminster, which spawned the US Top 40 dance hit "Spasticus Autisticus", which he co-wrote.

[10] After leaving the Blockheads, Jankel pursued a solo career and issued four studio albums for A&M, including his 1980 self-titled debut and 1981's Chasanova, which was also released under the title Questionnaire.

Jankel composed the majority of the music for the Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010), in which he was portrayed by Tom Hughes.

Tao lives and works in Oslo, Norway and is a successful DJ; when he was very young, his parents divorced and his mother moved back to Sweden.

In 1992 Jankel moved back to the UK, where he met artist Elaine O'Halloran, on the set of the film The Rachel Papers (1989), where she was assistant editor.

[22] The couple married and have a son, Lewis Shay Jankel, born in 1993, who is a DJ, record producer, singer and songwriter, using the stage name Shift K3Y.