The reaper has reaped a grim toll this last year, many across these last few weeks of the year. Including this, which surprised me quite how much it affected me.
I guess I had always thought of myself as somewhat a casual fan of the Specials, thinking the less than a handful of discs I owned was representative more of a general broad based enthusiasm for a range of styles and genres. Until, that is, I appreciated quite how few they had made, and that I had them all. Living in the English Midlands I could hardly be unaware of them, with Coventry just down the road. Already a fan of reggae, it wasn't all that much of a jump into the actually slightly older musical form, ska, which pre-existed the slower loping rhythm I was more familiar with. This music was faster and spikier, and, as presented by the Two Tone movement, seemed an exciting mix of punk with reggae. The fact that it bridged the racial divide, black and white, at a time when racism was running amok in the UK also appealed, an aggressive eff you to the National Front, the only white lives matter movement of the day. A whole rash of singles exploded out of Coventry, a divided post-industrial city with more than its fair share of deprivation and despair, introducing The Specials, Madness and The Selecter in the first wave. Hell, even Elvis Costello jumped on board, if briefly. The year was 1979.
Gangsters was their starting point, and, boy did they look it, followed swiftly by a reprise of an old reggae hit of the 60's, A Message To You, Rudy, actually a plea for the wild youth of that day, the Kingston Jamaica 'Rude Boys' to calm down and act more responsibly. So far, so good, exciting tunes for exciting times, the first album featuring much of the same, energetic and straightforward. But, evolving into their second album, it was clear there was deeper thought than dancing and the charts. For the single, Stereotype was at a whole different level, a drawling put down of the hand that might have been seeing to feed them, a damning indictment of inner city chaotic lives. It then took the spooky cadence and worryingly prescient Ghost Town to finally place them at the top of the UK chart, the band having to have been content with five of their earlier singles being merely top 10 material. These latter two came from More Specials, an actually quite difficult album to enjoy, the singles apart.
With internal frictions within, the three front men, Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple jumped ship, forming the Fun Boy Three, who took the odd disparacy of their appearances further, Hall looking increasingly bizarre alongside the two West Indians. The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum) was their opening salvo, more post punk than ska, and they too became a chart staple, most memorably a brace of singles with the female band, Bananarama.
When the Fun Boy Three also imploded, Hall took part in a number of collaborations, starting with The Colourfield, who produced a couple of well received albums, partly collaborating with Liverpool mover and shaker, Ian Broudie, of the Lightning Seeds. Further work included the trio, Terry, Blair & Anouschka and Vegas, a joint effort with the ex-Eurythmic, Dave Stewart, which bombed. A couple of fully solo albums, Home, in 1994, and Laugh, in 1997. I confess he had, by now, since the Colourfield in fact, had fallen off my radar.
He came back with a bounce when the Specials decided to reform, in 2008. In fact, the band had never fully folded, and the keyboard player, Jerry Dammers, had kept the b(r)and alive as, initially, the Special AKA. Various members left and re-joined, making no great headway. When Dammers left to form his free form jazz ensemble, The Spatial AKA Orchestra, this led the door open for a number of opportunities, with first a Golding and Staple Specials Mark 2, featuring also some of the backing band, notably Roddy Radiation, guitar, and Horace Panter, bass. Lurching forward, some staying, some going, it was only in 2008 that something more concrete could emerge, when Hall again re-united. With six of the seven originals present, only Dammers was absent, he claiming he had ben pushed out and that 'his' band had been subject to a takeover.
By 2013 they were ready to start recording, but Staple again left, followed swiftly by Radiation. Drummer John Bradbury then died, so it was a somewhat reconstructed band that produced and made Encore, in 2019, the album escalating to the top of the album chart within a week. The songs were still deeply politicised, but there was now a far greater sense of gravity. Prior to Covid the band went on a mammoth tour and experienced sell-outs every step of the way. Then, ground to a halt by the virus, the band miraculously cooked up a further album, a masterful selection of covers, entitled, in no great change of direction, Protest Songs. Here's what I had to say about it over on Covermesongs. To be honest I felt this their strongest work so far, and Hall had never sounded or looked stronger. Or more in control. No small feat for a man who had outed himself to a personal history of sexual abuse, having been abducted by a teacher at his school aged 12. Which sort of explained his odd affect and the air of melancholy that hung over him, of the deep and buried issues within.
The Specials were on a high. Never having caught them live, they were very much on my bucket list of bands to see. (Indeed, I had had even had tickets for the tour expunged by the virus.) I was looking forward to the projected reggae album, hoping for a summer tour, maybe taking in a summer festival or two. And then came the news. This description, by erstwhile bandmate, Panter, spelt it out best, presenting the facts with evident love and shock. I was shocked by how upset I felt. I still am.
R.I.P., Terry. By way of farewell, here is another cover that exemplifies his awkward and quirky charm, featuring Sinead O'Connor, unusually with hair.
