Terry Hall, lead singer of British ska band The Specials, whose typically politically charged hits within the late Seventies and early Eighties included “Gangsters” and “Ghost Town”, has died aged 63, his former band members mentioned.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing, following a brief illness, of Terry, our beautiful friend, brother and one of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced,” they mentioned on Twitter.
Hall joined the band in 1977 in his central English dwelling metropolis of Coventry. With its mixture of black and white members and its Jamaican-inspired sound, they turned a logo of Britain’s new multicultural id at a time of racial tensions.
“The Specials were a celebration of how British culture was invigorated by Caribbean immigration,” singer Billy Bragg, a part of the identical wave of performers, tweeted in response to the news.
“But the onstage demeanour of their lead singer was a reminder that they were in the serious business of challenging our perception of who we were in the late 1970s.”
Hall was well-known for his deadpan supply, staring expressionless into the tv cameras as he sang, whereas the remainder of the band leapt about behind him, dressed of their trade-mark fits, pork-pie hats and idler sneakers.
Their music “Too Much Too Young,” a critique of teenage being pregnant, reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart in 1980, and so they repeated the feat in 1981 with “Ghost Town,” a protest in opposition to city decay beneath the federal government of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Hall left the band in 1981 to arrange one other group, Fun Boy Three, with two different former Specials members. He rejoined The Specials — also referred to as The Special AKA — and carried out with them as just lately as this yr.
