Band: The Specials(Coventry, UK) Single: Ghost Town – stand alone single B-sides: Why? and Friday Night Saturday Morning Released: 12 June 1981 Note 1: the song was released at the same time as riots broke out in British cities. Note 2: Internal tensions within the band when the single was recorded came to
a boiling point. It was the last single recorded by the original seven members
before breaking up Score: #1 in the UK
40 years ago, on 19 October 1979, Coventry legends THE SPECIALS reworked 60s Jamaican ska music with their gloriously stimulating, self-titled, Elvis Costello produced debut album on Jerry Dammers‘s Two Tone Records label. Led by charismatic frontman Terry Hall the band injected the original genre with a high dose of punk vitality, politically and socially charged outspokenness and a series of amazeballs top tunes, including some covers of older Jamaican songs such as ‘Monkey Man‘ (by Toost And The Maytals), ‘Too
Hot‘ (by Prince Buster) and hit single ‘A Message To You Rudy’ (by Dandy Livingstone).
The longplayer hit the UK albums top 5 and remained for 45 weeks on the charts.
NME wrote at the time: “Although the predominant musical influence is black (ska, bluebeat, reggae and soul), it’s wrapped in ferocious rock’n’roll: the kind of hybrid that so many other British bands have tried to contrive but, in comparison, failed to make convincing … This LP embraces two decades of black and white music, gives it perspective and then goes on to
reflect the modern rock’n’roll culture … It’s the kind of album that’s musically fathomless and
it will probably establish The Specials as true hopes for the ’80s. At the very least this debut is essential for anybody who wants to know what’s going on in rock’n’roll today”
Coventry‘s Ska legends THE SPECIALS scored their first Top Ten hit in the UK
with their stand-alone debut single ‘GANGSTERS’. The stellar track came out 40 years ago today, on 4 May 1979 and reached #6 on the singles chart.
The song was actually issued already once, two months before as a part of
a limited double A-side single – which was pressed on 5000 copies – along with
an instrumental track by 2 Tone label mates The Selecter. Here’s the artwork
of that special issue…
Terence Edward Hall better known as TERRY HALL was born in Coventry, England on
19 March 1959. Happy 60! He is most famous for being the frontman of ska legends THE SPECIALS (who released new LP Encore last month) but he was also involved in several side-projects such as Fun Boy Three (1981-1983), The Colourfield (1984-1987),
he recorded two solo albums and collaborated with a series of musicians. Here are 3 big tracks to celebrate this special artist’s 60th birthday…
– GHOST TOWN –
(with The Specials – 1981)
– IT AIN’T WHAT YOU DO IT’S THE WAY THAT YOU DO IT –
(with Fun Boy Three featuring Banarama – 1982)
Every week Turn Up The Volume! jumps into the past! Relive 25 Crackers and 3 Top Albums per year/per week. Here’s another firework year to remember: 1979.