In the Dark

I was very sad last night to hear the news of the death at the age of 63 of Terry Hall, lead singer of The Specials, one of the leading bands of the 2 Tone movement which swept the UK music scene in 1979. The Guardian obituary makes it clear what a tough upbringing Terry Hall had but also how firmly he stuck to his political ideals.

I was still at School in the 1970s and, though never a fan of Punk (which immediately preceded 2-Tone in popularity), I absolutely loved bands like The Specials, The Beat and especially Selecter. I enjoyed not only their music, but also their admirably inclusive multi-racial approach, exemplified by their adoption of Ska, the Jamaican music genre that paved the way to Reggae.

Being a bit of an anorak I actually managed way back then to get hold of some of the very rare original Ska recordings, principally by the superb Skatalites. This wonderful band specialized in irreverent and eccentric cover versions of movie film tunes from the 1960s including Doctor Zhivago and James Bond, plus the classic Guns of Navarone. Nowadays you can find lots of this music to download, but it was quite hard work getting vinyl recordings at that time. As well as enjoying 2-Tone itself I was immensely grateful for the window it provided to a treasure house of wonderful music.

Ska is usually played (at least nominally) in 4/4 time, but each beat is really a cluster of sub-beats forming a triplet so the usual 1-2-3-4 of the 4/4 turns into 123-123-123-123, etc . Usually the drummer puts a heavy bass accent (and usually a side stick or rim shot on the snare) on the 3rd component of each triplet, and there would be guitar chops, other percussion, and/or brass riffs on the “off” beats. It is said that this structure was inherited, at least in part, from the marching bands that played in Jamaica and it does give a kind of strutting feel to the overall pulse. But wherever it came from the beat gives the music an infectiously bouncy rhythm that gives anyone dancing to it an irresistible urge to jump up and down, especially on up-tempo numbers. The triplet structure also gives those with no sense of rhythm a greater probability of moving in time with at least one relevant beat.

Anyway, here as a tribute to Terry Hall are The Specials, in a typically exuberant live performance recorded on British TV in 1979 (a programme which I think I actually watched at the time). They are playing the theme from The Guns of Navarone as a direct tribute to the Skatalites, whose wonderful original version you can also find on Youtube here (although it is really just audio).

Rest in peace, Terry Hall (1959-2022)

This entry was posted on December 20, 2022 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Biographical, Music, R.I.P.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.