The Specials - More Specials
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 04.10.1980
"The word will come out of Coventry," Terry Hall seemed to proclaim at full volume. And sure enough, in late-1970s Britain, a band emerged that brought together Jamaican ska, developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the sharp mod fashions of the Sixties, and the bruising punk rock sweeping through Britain at the time.
"The Specials" were among the bands that brought different styles and subcultures together to create Two Tone. And when I talk about Two Tone, I am talking about Jerry Dammers, the man who founded "The Specials", whose second album, "More Specials", was released on October 4, 1980.
As Britain moved beyond the middle of the 1970s, punk culture began spreading across the country. Leather clothing, ripped jeans, military boots and piercings in unexpected places were all part of a rebellion against everything considered respectable and conventional.
A decade and a half before punk took over Britain, mod culture had ruled the roost. The name came from "modernist", and the mods had a distinctive style of their own, favouring tailored suits and a musical diet of soul, rhythm and blues, jazz and ska.
By the mid-Sixties, British rock bands such as "The Who", "The Kinks" and "Small Faces" had come to represent mod culture. Around this time, clashes between mods and rockers began breaking out across Britain, spreading to seaside towns including Brighton, Margate and Clacton.
The fighting reached its peak during the May 1964 bank holiday weekend in Brighton and Margate. These disturbances spiralled out of control, fuelling a wave of public alarm that reached the British government itself.
Back to Jerry Dammers, who was born in southern India in 1955. His family moved to Britain when he was a child, and he grew up in Coventry. Young Jerry developed a taste for jazz and embraced the mod subculture spreading across Britain. Later, he would gravitate towards another subculture that grew out of mod roots and Jamaican rude-boy culture: the skinheads.
After leaving school, Dammers studied art at Coventry's Lanchester Polytechnic, an institution that later became part of Coventry University. There he met an amiable fellow named Horace Panter, and together they planned to form a band. The pair recruited singer Tim Strickland, guitarist Lynval Golding and drummer Silverton Hutchinson, setting out as "The Automatics". Strickland was soon replaced by a young man they knew from Coventry's punk scene, Terry Hall.
Back to Dammers again. In 1979, about two years after the band formed, he established 2 Tone Records, which became one of the focal points of Britain's ska revival. Bands such as "Madness", "The Beat" and "The Selecter" owe some of their earliest steps on record to Dammers and his label.
Dammers connected the music he was creating with the protest culture that had always been part of his outlook, becoming an anti-apartheid activist. He later wrote the celebrated "Free Nelson Mandela", released in 1984 by "The Special AKA".
As mentioned, "The Specials" began life in 1977 as "The Automatics", before becoming "The Coventry Automatics".
On the road to their breakthrough, the band toured with "The Clash" and worked with that band's manager, Bernie Rhodes. The breakthrough itself came with the launch of 2 Tone Records and "The Specials"' debut single, "Gangsters", which drew on "Al Capone" by Jamaican ska pioneer Prince Buster.
The band's self-titled debut album arrived in October 1979, produced by Elvis Costello. "The Specials" combined punk, ska and Jamaican rocksteady with protest songs. The combination worked beautifully, and the album sold well.
Exhausted by the tour for their first album, and under pressure from Chrysalis Records, 2 Tone's bigger sibling, "The Specials" returned to the studio to record their second album, "More Specials", released roughly a year after its predecessor.
On this album, "The Specials" sound more diverse, both musically and lyrically. Elvis Costello had given the debut a raw, direct production, but this time Dammers took control of the producer's chair, bringing Dave Jordan alongside him. He wanted to expand on the lean sound of the first album by exploring the recording studio's possibilities, particularly the addition of instrumental and vocal layers to existing recordings: overdubbing.
Central to Dammers' approach was the idea that music need not be divided into good and bad. He approached every style with an open mind, believing that repeated listening could turn unfamiliar sounds into something he would eventually grow to love.
Some members saw this direction as an attempt to make the band more international, and not everyone was happy with Dammers' vision or the course he was setting.
Once again, "The Specials" addressed the problems facing Britain's younger generation and wider political issues, calling for racial solidarity. The album combines energetic ska with lyrics that reveal the band's fear of a world sliding towards nuclear war. "Man at C&A" invokes doomsday, placing an ordinary man at the mercy of the war games played by those in power.
There is also "Do Nothing", a song about apathy and the feeling that life has lost its purpose. Behind it all lies the band's simmering frustration with the state of the country.
The album's second half sounds as though "The Specials" have been whisked away to a different destination with every track. They leap from cha-cha and bossa nova to dub and psychedelia, before letting us unwind with a little elevator music and jazz.
The album cover shows an out-of-focus colour photograph of the band in the bar of the Regent Hotel in Leamington Spa. Dammers asked photographer Chalkie Davies to deliberately take a poor-quality picture, recalling the sleeves of Jamaican records.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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