Terry Hall, the longtime voice of legendary ska group The Specials has died after what the band termed a brief illness. He was 63.
Hall and the Specials reached their widest appeal with the haunting, socially conscious “Ghost Town,” which spent three weeks at No. 1 on the U.K. singles charts in 1981. The song was a commentary on economic strife in Margaret Thatcher’s England and the social unrest of the era, including riots that year in Britain. It was named “Single of the Year” by all three of the major UK music magazines.
The Specials were formed in the late ’70s by songwriter/keyboardist Dammers, vocalist Tim Strickland, guitarist/vocalist Lynval Golding, drummer Silverton Hutchinson and bassist Horace Panter (a.k.a. Sir Horace Gentleman). Strickland was replaced by Hall shortly after the band’s formation. They were at the vanguard of the the 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain,...
Hall and the Specials reached their widest appeal with the haunting, socially conscious “Ghost Town,” which spent three weeks at No. 1 on the U.K. singles charts in 1981. The song was a commentary on economic strife in Margaret Thatcher’s England and the social unrest of the era, including riots that year in Britain. It was named “Single of the Year” by all three of the major UK music magazines.
The Specials were formed in the late ’70s by songwriter/keyboardist Dammers, vocalist Tim Strickland, guitarist/vocalist Lynval Golding, drummer Silverton Hutchinson and bassist Horace Panter (a.k.a. Sir Horace Gentleman). Strickland was replaced by Hall shortly after the band’s formation. They were at the vanguard of the the 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain,...
- 12/20/2022
- by Tom Tapp
- Deadline Film + TV
When the Specials’ Jerry Dammers’ launched the 2 Tone label in Britain in 1979, his group was more than just a ska revival band with good taste in covers — they were a multi-racial spearhead of a post-punk movement combatting skinhead racism (fueled by far-right groups like the National Front) and the craven business-first classism of the Thatcher government. Now, with racist nationalism on the rise amidst the Brexit debacle, the Special’s third album — 38 years since the last one, More Specials — is well timed. As frontman Terry Hall puts it, the band remain “horribly relevant.
- 2/2/2019
- by Will Hermes
- Rollingstone.com
Like many of the post-punk U.K. ska bands, The Specials were serious fans of the late Cecil Bustamente Campbell, aka Prince Buster, one of Jamaican music’s godfathers. They covered his “Too Hot” on their debut, “Enjoy Yourself” on their follow-up; their cohorts Madness made his “One Step Beyond” their signature. Now, the Specials have overhauled Prince Buster’s mid-Sixties spoken word single “Ten Commandments of Man.” A battle-of-the-sexes routine, the original addresses a woman as if she were property, instructing that she obey him “In my every whim...
- 1/31/2019
- by Will Hermes
- Rollingstone.com
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