|
Writing from the album booklet. The Selecter's Pauline Black perhaps put it best: "2 Tone was basically about black and white people playing together." Label chief and Specials keyboard player Jerry Dammers could be almost equally succinct: "I just wanted 2 Tone to be like a little club. And if you liked the music you became part of it." Very few record companies can challenge flesh-and-blood pop stars as myths in their own right. Those that do inevitably embody a specific cultural moment. Sun's rockabilly in the '50s, Motown's glossy soul and Stax's funkier version in the '60s, Stiffs new-wave bravado in the '70s. The British 2 Tone label also deserves legendary status, even if its fame never quite made it across the Atlantic. Like its fabled predecessors, 2 tone became synonymous with a particular style - in this case ska, the energetic precursor to reggae. That this late-'50s/early-'60s Jamaican music flourished in late-'70s England is a tribute to the United Kingdom's melting pot. A post-war labor shortage and unrestricted entry among Commonwealth countried encouraged West Indian immigration to Great Britain through the 1950s. By 1962, when legislation put the lid on, England had experienced its first race riots; there was no stopping the more peaceful dispersion of the new Britons' musical tastes. Jerry Dammers himself was an immigrant, albeit from India; his clergyman father relocated the family to England when Jerry was two years old. He grew up in Coventry, attended Lanchester Polytechnic as an art student, and immersed himself in the local music scene. In 1977 the British punk-rock movement was breeding bands like lice (many of them of comparable artistic merit as well). Dammers, guitarist Lynval Golding and bassist Horace Panter were in The Automatics. "We started playing punk-rock and heavy reggae," Panter recalled two years later. Mixing the two disparate styles isn't as odd as it might seem. Reggae's cultural outlaws were heroes to the disaffected British youth who rallied to punk's tocsin. The highly visible Clash, for example, saw no dichotomy in interspersing reggae tunes among revved-up guitar thrashers. Alas, the blend didn't work for the Automatics, according to Panter. Backing up chronologically, the band chose ska instead; "it's easier to play," Dammers commented. A year after forming, they had added guitarist Roddy Radiation and singers Terry Hall and Neville Staples; they had also changed their name to The Special A.K.A., to avoid confusion with another Automatics who had landed a record deal. Their biggest break to date came when The Clash tapped them as opening act on a British tour. Clash manager Bernard Rhodes proffered his services to the fledgling bacd, but the strong-willed Dammers was not a compatible match. The 2 Tone story begins in early 1979, when Dammers - taking Motown and Stax as role models - decided The Special A.K.A. should record on its own label. The band borrowed enough money for one track, "Gangsters": "I never understood the lyrics although I wrote them," Dammers admitted, "but I knew it was about sharks and wide boys that try and make money by pretending to run the music business." (The screeching-brakes sound effect was "sampled" from Prince Buster's "Al Capone.") They had no money left to record a flipside, so Golding contacted guitarist friend Noel Davies, who had tapped a moody instrumental at home a year earlier. Overdubbing ska rhythm guitar turned it into "The Selecter." Dammers put his art background to use designing the 2 Tone logo. With 5,000 copies pressed and independant distribution lined up, 2 Tone was on its way. And so was The Special A.K.A. Personnel stabilized with the additon of drummer John Bradbury, who'd co-written and played on "The Selecter." The single became an underground hit; the band's high-octane live sets attracted numerous record company executives, not to mention Mick Jagger. Despite the growing industry buzz, Dammers had no intention of selling out. In spring, 1979 Chrysalis Records won The Special A.K.A. by agreeing to 2 Tone's existence. Chrysalis would market 2 tone, whose directors were all the members and managers of The Special A.K.A. and The Selecter - which Davies hastily formed when he realized 2 Tone was about to put his career in high gear. After Chrysalis took over distribution, "Gangsters" zoomed into the British Top 10. And at first seemed as if 2 Tone could do no wrong. The second 2 Tone release was the recording debut of Madness, a London band that shared The Special A.K.A.'s taste for ska; "The Prince" went Top 20 in Britain, and Madness became superstars in that country after signing to Stiff Records. The third 2 Tone single introduced The Selecter proper, with the charismatic Pauline Black on vocals. "On My Radio" disguised contempt for that medium with a delightful melody and arrangement; its reward - ironically - was to go Top 10. The hits kept on coming as Dammers and Co. released their second 45, "A Message To You Rudy." The band's billing on this record marked two changes: the addition of original ska trombonist Rico Rodriguez, and a slight name shift to a more mouth-friendly "The Specials." A month later 2 Tone premiered yet another remarkable band, The Beat (known in the U.S. as The English Beat, and begetting General Public and Fine Young Cannibals). Their debut single was a catchy ska reworking of Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' "Tears Of A Clown." By February, 1980 there were seven 2 Tone singles, all of which had sold at least a quarter-million copies each, and all but two hitting the British Top 10. The Specials themselves reached the Number One spot with a live EP featuring the caustic "Too Much Too Young." The 2 Tone label was successful on a level most people would die for. Unfortunately, that was the effect success was having on The Specials. The band in general, and Dammers in particular, were running themselves ragged between tours and recording. Barely 12 months after 2 Tone's launch, Dammers was longing for "the old days - a year ago" and declaring, "2 Tone has become a monster." The Selecter agreed; Noel Davies disparaged 2 Tone as "just a successful pop label" as his band pulled out. Dammers was left promising that in the future "I don't think all of our records will be hits." Meanwhile, The Specials themselves - now up to nine with trumpeter Dick Cuthell as a touring member - were at each others' throats. An especially grueling U.S. tour had turned performing live, once the band's raison d'etre, into a chore. Dammers' musical taste was veering away from punk and ska rhythms, and toward what he called "Muzak or imitation music." To their horror, The Specials saw their live sets turning into excuses for audience punch-ups. In short, everything seemed to be suffering except The Specials' music. The Top 5 "Rat Race" found Dammers ceding composing duties to Roddy Radiation. The Following "Stereotype" did almost as well with an A-side concerning, Dammers said, "the extreme pressure on young people to abuse drugs, in this case alcohol." (The band's U.S. your inspired the AA-side, "International Jet Set.") The original group's last hurrah was the million-selling "Ghost Town", released with eerie timing as England's urban slums exploded into race riots. A few months later The Specials exploded when Hall, Staples and Golding left to start The Fun Boy Three. Dammers felt betrayed, but acknowledged that his songwriting royalties might have caused some jealousy. His high-handed leadership was probably just as responsible; "Ghost Town" was completely written out before recording. Soon after the mass defection Roddy Radiation left to pursue his more rock 'n' roll-oriented muse with The Tearjerkers. The remaining Specials and some newly hired hands reverted to The Special A.K.A name for legal reasons, backed singer Rhoda Dakar of the disbanded all-female Bodysnatchers (another case of too-much-too-soon) and recorded "The Boiler" - "designed", Dammers noted, "so that you only need to hear it once." They also accompanied Rico on a single. But these were holding actions - and The special A.K.A. then virtually disappered for two years. Where was Dammers, 2 Tone's auteur? Running up an enormous debt to Chrysalis while recording the wryly titled In The Studio album. About every eight months a single would dribble out. "War Crimes (The Crime Remains The Same)" dealt with Israeli army massacres of Palestins in Beirut refugee camps. Not too suprisingly, it was the first Specials record to miss the charts completely. Dammers was unfazed: "I'm more proud of 'War Crimes' than almost anything else I've done", he declared. But that was before "Nelson Mandela". The Special A.K.A.'s last British Top 10 single didn't stint on its anti-apartheid message and still sold over 150,000 copies in the U.K. Artistically it was also a triumph, recorded in four days as a group rather than the protracted piecework that characterized the rest of In The Studio. The band never played live. While Dammers termed In The Studio "The Great Mistake", non-Special 2 Tone releases helped neither the label's finances nor reputation. The watery funk of The Apollinaires and The Higsons came closer to background music than Dammers' own self-proclaimed "Muzak". The jazzy Friday Club was more distinctive but hardly seemed worthy of the once-mighty 2 tone logo. The Swinging Cats' one loopy 2 Tone Single, on the other hand, might have been too distinctive for mass consumption. In any event, the last charting 2 Tone single not by The Specials had been The Bodysnatchers' charming "Easy Life" back in 1980. Five years later, 2 Tone's existence was as shadowy as that of The Special A.K.A. The label's last release (barring reissues) came from J.B.'s Allstars - with poetic justice, a group led by Dammers; loyal subordinate, drummer John Bradbury. Within seven years 2 Tone released 29 singles and eight albums. A Chrysalis imprint rather than an autonomous record company, 2 Tone was always a bit of a conceptual art project - which is perhaps why its legacy continues to inspire. Dammers subsequently espoused his philosophy - "You might as well write about something thats's important rather than something that's not important" - with a benefit single for Ethiopian famine victims and an anti-apartheid rap track. But what 2 Tone practiced is at least as vital as what it preached. "There's more to music than commerciality", Dammers said. Then again he also commented, "To me, 2 tone was just a record label, no more no less." You be the judge. A NOTE ON THE SONG SELECTION The 2 Tone Collection - A Checkered Past includes every 2 Tone single A-side with one exception: Elvis Costello & The Attractions' "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" (b/w "Girls Talk"). Costello, who produced the first Specials album, was a 2 Tone artist very briefly during a dispute with his own record company's corporate parent. The 2 Tone single, never officially released, soon appeared on another label after the legal problems were resolved. Both tracks are available on Costello's own albums. Many 2 Tone singles were marketed as "double A-side" releases. All double A-sides are here with one exception: the flip of The Specials' "Ghost Town", a three-track single. "Why?" and "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" are on The Specials' The Singles Collection. (Sorry, we are limited to 78 minutes per CD!) The last three tracks on disc 2 will be familiar only to the most devoted Specials fans. All come from recording sessions for the More Specials album. Describing his "Raquel' as "a rant against a girl", Dammers explained that on More Specials "we wanted to get away from that slightly anti-woman feel on the first [album] - 'Raquel' is another song I wrote when I was 15." It originally appeared as the B-side of "Concrete Jungle", a Dutch single. The other two comprised a free single included in the first 100,000 U.K. copies of More Specials. "It's just a pity we couldn't get [Roddy Radiation's] 'Braggin' and Tryin' Not To Lie' on the album itself", Dammers lamented. Both "Braggin'" and Neville Staples' toast on "Rude Boys Outta Jail" are now available again.
|