Michelle Dockery joins Peaky Blinders star for 'bands that changed lives' drama
Out of a nation torn apart by race riots and blighted by high unemployment and urban decline, one of Britain’s most remarkable musical movements was born. Black and white musicians from different backgrounds played together on stage, fusing Jamaican ska music, punk and reggae.
2 Tone was exuberant and eclectic and opened young people’s eyes to musical, cultural and political possibilities. It also provided the soundtrack to the late 70s and early 80s with the likes of The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat and Madness.
And this spring, 45 years on, the BBC is celebrating 2 Tone in This Town - a six-part drama, starring Michelle Dockery and Nicholas Pinnock, by Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight. The title is a nod to the lyrics of Ghost Town, The Specials’ haunting and scathing piece of social commentary which was number one for three weeks in 1981.
Jerry Dammers invited The Madness to sign with 2 Tone (Redferns)It was a high point for 2 Tone Records, launched from a Coventry bedsit by 19-year-old art student and musician Jerry Dammers two years earlier. Jerry formed The Specials and Ghost Town, whose lead vocalist Terry Hall died in 2022, became an anthem for fans.
Music producer Pete Waterman, 77, briefly managed The Specials and remembers 2 Tone being more like a cultural identity than a record label. He said: ”That was a moment in time. Everybody looks back now and goes, ‘Oh, my God!’”
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The Specials’ first record was Gangsters and initially there were only 5,000 copies. When it had a full release it reached number six in September 1979. The flip side of the single featured a number by The Selecter, musicians gathered together by Jerry’s pal Neol Davies. The diverse band fronted by Pauline Black soon became highly respected.
Huge hits followed for The Specials, such as Too Much Too Young, a number one for two weeks in 1980. A schoolboy at the time 2 Tone exploded was writer Daniel Rachel, whose book Too Much Too Young: The 2 Tone Records Story is published by Orion. He says: “I was 10. Suddenly I was seeing these bands on Top of the Pops, hearing them on Radio 1 and reading about them in Smash Hits. The clothing was as important as the music. The 2 Tone style swept through the playground at school.”
The Specials outside a chip shop in Bishop Street, Coventry (Getty Images)And 2 Tone fan Steven, 64, who was raised in Birmingham, says: “It’s an era I lived through and know well.” The Specials were the Coventry Automatics when Jamaican-born singer Neville Staple, 68, became involved. He first met Jerry at Coventry’s Holyhead Youth Club while rehearsing with his band Jah Baddis Sound System.
He says: “I heard a band in the next room rehearsing a really strange- sounding reggae with a rocky punk style. It was Jerry Dammers, along with Silverton Hutchinson, Tim Strickland, Horace Panter and Lynval Golding. I instantly got on with Jerry.” Neville, whose early life included spells in borstal, offered to be the Automatics’ roadie.
His life really changed in 1978 when the band was supporting The Clash and he jumped on stage and joined in, next to deadpan singer Terry. Neville started “toasting” – a Jamaican precursor to rap – where vocals were spoken over a reggae beat. He says: “I sang along, jumped and skanked.
"I toasted and the whole place warmed up perfectly. People loved having a black guy and a white guy fronting the band. This would go on to represent racial equality and the 2 Tone movement.” Pete Waterman says: “They were so good, I bundled them into a van and took them to the Berwick Street studios in Soho where we recorded four tracks in a day.
“I tried to get them a label. I even introduced them to Madonna’s manager, but he said, ‘That’s reggae punk, there’s no market for that’ – missing that it was a new pop sound.” Waterman says Dammers’ brilliant songwriting set the band apart. “They’re like capsules in time. Aside from Bob Dylan, nobody else has done that. They capture what was going on politically, but he wrapped them up in a way that people just sang them.
The Specials' Neville Staple and Terry Hall on stage in 1980 (Redferns)Actress and singer/songwriter Sugary Staple, from a mixed heritage family, embraced the sharp-looking uniform of pork pie hat and two-tone suit. She says: “All these tunes had lyrics with messages and meanings that everyday people could relate to. 2 Tone gave us a way to rebel.
“It also had a tidy and sharp image and sound to go with it. For us kids, who were going nowhere, it became our voice.” Of the nine-strong Specials line-up, Neville stood out for Sugary. She says: “I was smitten from the moment I saw him perform.” She remembers his unique method of crowd control, saying: “He’d jump from the stage and into the crowd to deal with troublemakers himself, especially when racial abuse was aimed at anyone.”
They did not actually meet until April 2010 after he did a DJ set in Shoreditch, East London. They married in January 2014 at Christiana, Jamaica, Neville’s birth place. Shortly after Ghost Town, The Specials split, with Staple, Golding and Hall forming Fun Boy Three. In 1986 the 2 Tone label ground to a halt. It was bought by Chrysalis and now mainly produces reissues, but the 2 Tone legacy lives on.
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Co-founder of the Coventry Music Museum Pete Chambers, who has a cameo role in This Town, says 2 Tone saved him from a lifetime working in a car factory, as he left it in 1981 to become a music journalist. He recalls Dammers complimenting him on his 2 Tone Rude Boy badge, saying: “I was down the pub. Jerry said, ‘I like that badge’. I gave it to him and a few weeks later he was wearing it on Top of the Pops. I felt so proud. “These bands changed lives – they changed my life.”
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