UK Ska Revival Movement pioneers The Specials are one of the most influential groups to come out of Britain. Forged in the fires of the country's unstable 1970s political and social scene they rose to prominence quickly and influenced an entire generation with their music. But just as quickly as they rose, internal tensions would cause them to fall apart?
00:00Hello everybody, welcome back again to the Reggae, Appreciation Society.
00:06The 1970s were a very stormy time in Great Britain, as that country was beset by economic challenges, power outages, labour strikes and social tensions.
00:16This chaotic atmosphere would give rise to counterculture waves like the skinheads and the punk movements among the young people.
00:23Their music of choice was punk rock, but by the end of that decade, they would embrace another underground counterculture sound in reggae music.
00:32And out of all this chaos came one of the coolest and most influential bands to emerge from Great Britain in the form of the Amazing Specials,
00:41a group that led the UK ska revivalist movements and were even responsible for the name of that movement's variation of reggae known as Two-Tone,
00:49a sound which was a fusion of ska, punk rock and new wave.
00:54England was a culturally divided place, but the specials were made up of skinheads, punks, rassafarians and 1950s-influenced rockabillies,
01:03all coming together to unleash militant anthems that echoed the disillusionment of an entire generation of British young people.
01:10They were powerful in both a sonic and visual way, as they all dressed in 1960s mod-style roadboy outfits,
01:18decked out in their hats, suspenders, fitted suits and loafers.
01:23And when they burst on the scene in 1979, it seemed the world had been waiting for that group of working-class music geniuses,
01:31as they would score hit after hit with songs that conveyed their jaded worldview and led the way for similar bands to follow in their slipstream and cemented the era of Two-Tone.
01:42But in the most ironic of circumstances, these lads from Coventry, who had always embodied the turbulence of their times, would implode as success would arrive.
01:51Let's take a look at the radical story of the specials.
01:54Now the tale of this band begins in the industrial city of Coventry in the West Midlands region of England, with a guy called Jerry Damas.
02:03He was born in India in 1955 to a preacher father.
02:07The family moved back to Coventry when he was still a very young child, and he grew up listening to rock music, but acquired a love for reggae in the early 1970s.
02:15Coventry had a very vibrant immigrant community, with lots of Jamaicans who held sound system dances and house parties very often, and their music would play loudly into the night.
02:27Jerry was smitten by that sound, and by the age of 15, he was playing drums with a reggae band with some friends.
02:33He would enroll at the then-Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry, where he met fellow students in singer Tim Strickland, bass player Horace Panter, and guitarist Linval Gordy.
02:45And with him on keyboards, Jerry would form the band called the Coventry Automatics in 1977.
02:51Tim Strickland soon left the band, and was replaced by a then-19-year-old construction site worker called Terry Hall.
02:57And they would also add Neville Staple, Roddy Byers, and John Bradbury to that lineup by the middle of 1978.
03:05The band was forced to change their name after Island Records assigned a group also called the Automatics, and they would become known as the Special A.K.A.
03:13The band came to continue to grow on account of their music and Jerry Dammers' activism.
03:18Jerry Dammers would organize the Rock Against Racism concert in Coventry in May 1978,
03:24and the band got noticed by lead singer of popular punk group The Clash, who added them as opening acts on their own tour.
03:32By the time that tour ended, Jerry Dammers got a brainwave and formed his own record label, Two Tones Records,
03:37as a vehicle for his vision of a musical fusion of ska, punk rock, and new wave.
03:43Along with the specials, bands like Madness and Selector would be signed to Two Tones Records,
03:49and they went into the studio to craft their debut single, and the result was the song Gangsters,
03:55that was based on a Prince Buster song called Al Capone.
03:59BBC Radio DJ John Peele came across the song and played it on his influential late night show,
04:05and his popularity would spread like wildfire.
04:08Gangsters was a cultural explosion that stunned the whole of Europe and marked the dawn of the ska revival era.
04:14It went into the top 10 in Belgium, the UK, and France, and charted in several countries across Europe, on release in 1979.
04:24With this breakout success, record labels began to approach them,
04:28and they would agree to a deal with Crystallis Records, who promised them independence and, I believe, artistic freedom.
04:35They changed their name to the specials, and began to work on their debut album in the same year.
04:39That album was produced by Elvis Costello, and they brought veterans car trombonist Michael Rodriguez on board,
04:47and the result was the incredible self-titled album The Specials, that came out in October that same year.
04:54The first single, A Message to You Rudy, which was a warning to all the troublemakers and rude boys in the streets,
05:00became a hit that reached number one in the UK singles charts, and charted in several other countries.
05:06The second single, Too Much Too Young, took them to the next level when it went to number one in the UK singles charts in January 1980.
05:15As far as debuts go, the specials album was among the most spectacular in UK history.
05:20Two Tones Car had arrived.
05:22The appeal of this band was how real they were.
05:25They spoke to real-life issues that were going on in England,
05:28and it resonated with young people and working-class communities all over England and the world at large.
05:34Against the backdrop of the UK's economic problems and the wave of inner-city riots ravaging the country,
05:41the band released their follow-up album, More Specials, in September 1980.
05:46This album featured their lead single, Ratch Race, which they named after a wireless track of the same name.
05:52This song was a blazing critique of Rich Kiss playing around in college,
05:56and also became a hit that reached number five in the UK charts.
05:59This album was well-received by critics and was commercially successful,
06:04but behind closed doors, it was tearing that band apart,
06:07unlike their debut album that was produced by Elvis Costello to have a raw quality and feel.
06:13This one was produced by Jerry Dammers himself and featured a more polished sound.
06:18Dammers also infused more influences like jazz and easy-listening lounge music,
06:23a direction that would anger his bandmates.
06:27The specials were idealists and were committed to the purity of two-toned ska.
06:32Even the album cover of the second album was colorful and showed members of that band smiling,
06:37in stark contrast to the cover of the first album that was in black and white
06:41and showed a bleak serious look on the faces of the boys.
06:45Loud arguments and confrontations became a daily thing.
06:48However, in 1981, the band would draw inspiration from all the terrible economic depression around them
06:55to put out the phenomenal Ghost Town.
06:58Policies which had been implemented by the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
07:02had hit their home city of Coventry really hard.
07:05As that industrial city saw factories and businesses closed down,
07:09resulting in clubs and bars closing down,
07:12unemployment rising and violence spiking in the streets.
07:16This 3 minutes and 40 second masterpiece spent 3 weeks at number 1 in the UK charts
07:22and would chart strongly in several other countries.
07:25It's definitely my favorite special song and has been used in lots of movies over the years.
07:31But despite its spectacular success,
07:33it proved to be the group's swan song as the band would splinter soon after.
07:37Terry Hall, Neville Staple and Linval Golding would leave to form a pop group called Fun Boy 3,
07:43but would break up 2 years later.
07:45Some other members would leave as well.
07:47And by the time Jerry Damage released their 3rd album titled In The Studio in 1984
07:52with the new name of the specials AKA,
07:55that band had in essence ceased to exist.
07:58And that album wasn't really what we would call a commercial hit,
08:01though it contained the hit track, Free Nelson Mandela.
08:04Over the years, members of the specials would go on to successful individual projects
08:09with reunion shows popping up every now and then,
08:12but all of them without Jerry Damage,
08:14who's been doing his thing on his own with a group called the Spatial AKA Orchestra.
08:19And the final specials album that was named Protest Songs came out in 2021
08:24and would feature only Terry Hall, Linval Golding and Horace Panther from the original lineup.
08:31Sadly, Terry Hall passed away in 2022.
08:33Despite their 9 albums and tours over the past 41 years,
08:38I only regard their music and lineup between 1977 and 1981 as canon.
08:43They are one of my favorite UK groups across all genres
08:46and not only paved the way for other two-tone ska bands like Bad Manners and Madness,
08:52but pioneered the creation of a whole sub-genre of reggae that we now know as two-tone ska.
08:58And have also been the inspiration for many bands over the years like Massive Attack and The Gorillaz.
09:04Born out of the chaos of their day,
09:06they embodied the angst of Britain in the 1970s
09:09and in response created music that became the immortal soundtrack
09:12of disaffected people that endures till this day.
09:16I noticed that their track Ghost Town saw a resurgence in downloads and streams
09:21during the lockdowns four years ago,
09:23proving that the specials music will always be relevant.
