Terry Hall, Singer of Ska Revivalists the Specials, Dead at 63

Terry Hall, who brought on the English 2-Tone ska revival with the band the Specials, has died. He was 63. Hall died following a brief illness, the band said on Instagram. His music and his performances encapsulated the very essence of life the joy, the pain, the humour, the fight for justice, but mostly

Terry Hall.

Terry Hall, who brought on the English 2-Tone ska revival with the band the Specials, has died. He was 63. Hall died following a brief illness, the band said on Instagram. “His music and his performances encapsulated the very essence of life … the joy, the pain, the humour, the fight for justice, but mostly the love,” the band wrote. After dropping out of school at 14, Hall eventually joined a band called the Coventry Automatics in his late teens. They would later become the Specials in 1979, alongside founder and songwriter Jerry Dammers and other longtime members including Lynval Golding and Horace Panter. The band soon opened for the Clash on tour after Joe Strummer went to one of their gigs and released their self-titled debut album, produced by Elvis Costello, in 1979. That album featured covers of Jamaican artists like Toots and the Maytals and Dandy Livingstone, along with political messages about racism and violence, and it became a key album in the ska revival in the U.K. as well as a chart hit. The band released another album, More Specials, in 1980, and had a U.K. No. 1 with the song “Ghost Town.”

But shortly after that hit, Hall left the band, along with Golding and singer Neville Staple, owing to disagreements with other members. They formed the group Fun Boy Three, which found more hits including “Our Lips Are Sealed,” a song Hall wrote with Go-Go’s guitarist and singer Jane Wiedlin, who recorded it with her band too. While Hall went on to form other bands, including the Colourfield in the mid-1980s and Vegas with Eurythmics musician Dave Stewart, he also had a solo career. In 2008, he reunited the Specials with a lineup including Golding and Panter. They later released the album Encore in 2019, marking Hall’s first contributions to the band since 1981; it became the Specials’ most successful album in the U.K., debuting at No. 1.

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Terry Hall, Singer of Ska Revivalists the Specials, Dead

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