Asides

The Life And Times Of Terry Hall – R.I.P.

March 19, 1959 – December 18, 2022.

Terry Hall from Coventry, U.K. started his musical adventures in a punk band before getting drawn in to the Coventry Automatics, The Special AKA and then known as The Specials. 2 Tone – the label founded by Jerry Dammers and the Ska Revival in the late 70’s with The Selecter, The Beat, Madness, The Bodysnatchers, Bad Manners is well documented and researched. The orginal Specials broke up in 1981 after years of permanent touring and many great Songs and Singles.

Terry, co-Singer Neville Staples and Lynval Golding had prepared their first Fun Boy Three Single ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum’ already and jumpstarted a new career while the remaining Specials fragmented and faded out with a final LP ‘In The Studio’ appearing after endless Studio Sessions in 1984.

The Fun Boy Three released a bunch of incredible singles plus two great Albums, 1982 and 1983 before Terry called them quits. The surprised Neville and Lynval – on vacation then tried a new project Sunday Best with Pauline Black, from the equally dissolved Selecter which fell on dumb ears and faded after one single.
Terry had started The Colour Field (or Colourfield) heading more into melancholic British Pop with Toby Lyons and Karl Shale. Today best known for the pretty blatant but successful ‘Thinking Of You’ single still most songs showed Terry’s with and sharp observational skills. Surfaced now has this Radio Show, hosted by him in early 1985:

After various line-up changes The Colour Field faded out in obscurity after an weak second Album in 1987, recorded by Hall & Lyons with the aid of guest musicians and an over the top sterile production. This left Terry Hall to pursue a new project featuring Blair Booth and Anouchka Grose, ‘Ultra Modern Nursery Rhymes’ before teaming up with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics as Vegas for one Album.
1994 finally saw his first solo LP ‘Home’, produced by Ian Broudie with whom he kept regularly working during the 90’s, appearing as co-writer and Singer on many of Lighting Seeds releases. 1997 he released ‘Laugh’, arranged and partly co-written with Craig Gannon and 2003 a collaborative Album with Mushtaq from Fun-Da-Mental ‘The Hour Of Two Lights’ which showed less Terry Hall as we knew him than any other release before besides on “A Tale Of Woe”.

Drawn back to Ska/Dance/House Music he appeared as guest of Junkie XL, Lautrec, Tricky and on many occasions live and on record with The Dub Pistols with the brilliant ‘Problem Is’ for example.

Finally he seemed at ease with his past success and roots and slowly the possibility of a Specials Reunion became real. In 2009 all the Specials (minus Jerry Dammers) got on the road again for a 30th Anniversary Tour and surprisingly stayed together for the following years, also touring ‘More Specials’.

With the core of Terry, Lynval and Horace (Neville Staples had to quit due Health issues and John Bradbury died in 2015, Roddy Radiation got lost again on the way) The Specials MK III released the Studio Album ‘Encore’ in 2019 which stayed true to the original spirit of The Specials, not shying away from any current issues. This was followed in 2021 with a cover album ‘Protest Songs 1924-2012’, an all new album was in preparation but this was not meant to be.

Terry Hall leaves three sons, two with his former wife and one with his later one. He fought depressions and traumas and was one of the first Patrons and supporters of Tonic, aiming to help people in the music industry fighting against mental illness.

The world lost a brilliant wordsmith and a unique voice of his generation.

(12 Movements Of) BOOM – Keith LeBlanc

Incredible 23 years have passed without an regular Keith LeBlanc solo album now, hard to believe as he’s been all over the place all of the time but except some reissues on his / Blanc bandcamp lately there was hardly any solo activity besides 2008’s Chess Moves – Future Blues Project not many seemed to know what to make of as it was a strange hybrid of original recordings with added Instrumentation by Keith, Doug (Wimbish) and Skip (McDonald) – maybe best described as found on dc “Re-production and partial re-instrumentation of old blues tracks using the original tapes”. Then there where regrouping activities as Tack>>Head live and even culminating into the “For The Love Of Money” cover versions album in 2014 which didn’t exactly overmatch it’s expectations. I’m not even sure if the title was meant ironically.
Anyway; 12 Movements Of Boom does.
Of course it might be there where no expectations to see another KLB album which was really regrettable as his incredible mix of electro, hip hop, funk, jazz and whatever style comes to his mind held together by his rhythmic brilliance somehow managed to build up to amazing heights, especially on Time Traveller (Blanc Records 1992) and Stranger Than Fiction (Enigma / Nettwerk 1989) two albums I regularly return to. The selected cast of guest musicians old and new support this all-in vision.
His long time allies Doug & Skip ‘Little Axe’ and a shelved but not forgotten tape with recordings of vocals and poetry from the late Andy Fairley given to him in the 90’s build the solid core of Boom. He dives more into mellower jazz ambience and hip hop here than in the 1990’s without loosing himself and his trademark edgy beats. A very welcome highlight.

A week later, October 25th he released the companion album – Boom Instrumentals & Bonus Tracks.

More Blanc Records digital releases, rarities and reissues are online at bandcamp and further infos on keithLeblanc.com .

Fay Ray Waiting For The Heatwave…

For me this is an classic since I heard it first and with raising temperatures outside it came to mind once again.

Fay Ray came from Bangor, Wales, U.K., evolved out of Hot Water and Dick Dick & the Dicks published one Single ‘Family Affairs’ on Nigel Gray (Most famous for Production and Recording work on eaarly Police stuff) before signing to WEA.
The single and the sole Album Contact You never took off for reasons beyond my understanding. A second fully recorded Album was not even issued by WEA (and remains unreleased) due to the commercial failure.
Well perhaps it would’ve helped if the invested a little more effort in the rather pointless sleeve design. This 1982 Video to their sole Single on WEA was uploaded by Tony Travis, the original bassist.
As a bonus for the curious – Where are they today ? How do they look today ? What happened ? – here is a rare re-union take from an instore gig 2010. ‘Family Affairs’ live at Cob Records, Bangor. Recorded on Saturday 17th April at 1:45pm. The Event was part of Independent Record Store Day.