Terry Hall: lead singer of the Specials dies aged 63

Terry Hall, the lead singer of the Specials and a former member of Fun Boy Three and the Colourfield, has died aged 63, his bandmates in the Specials have confirmed.

“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,” the band tweeted.

“Terry was a wonderful husband and father and one of the kindest, funniest, and most genuine of souls. 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.

“He will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved him and leaves behind the gift of his remarkable music and profound humanity. Terry often left the stage at the end of The Specials’ life-affirming shows with three words… ‘Love Love Love’.”

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The band asked for respect for Hall’s family’s privacy.

Hall joined the first incarnation of the Specials – then called the Automatics – shortly after the Coventry band formed in 1977, replacing vocalist Tim Strickland. After a stint as the Coventry Automatics, they became Special AKA, known as the Specials. The pioneering 2 Tone band rose thanks to the support of Joe Strummer, who invited them to support the Clash live, and of BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel.

They released their debut single, Gangsters (a reworking of Prince Buster’s Al Capone) in 1979, which reached No 6 in the UK singles chart. They would dominate the Top 10 over the next two years, peaking with their second No 1 single, and calling card, Ghost Town, in 1981. The lyrics, written by the band’s main songwriter, Jerry Dammers, dealt with Britain’s urban decay, unemployment and disfranchised youth.

Its popularity peaked in early summer 1981 as riots between young Black people and police were erupting across the UK in response to racist discrimination and the use of stop-and-search tactics. It remained at No 1 for three weeks, spending 10 weeks in the Top 40, and is widely considered one of the greatest pop records of all time.

Hall was born in Coventry on 19 March 1959 to a family who predominantly worked in the car industry. He was an academically gifted child and also a noted footballer who was invited to try out for West Bromwich Albion. After he sailed through the 11-plus exam, his parents also declined his place at a nearby grammar school.

He dropped out of education at the age of 14 and felt pushed towards non-conformism. “I can laugh about it now but it sort of switched something in my head, and it’s like I don’t have to do that, and that’s when I started not listening to anyone.”

His political awakening came in his teenage years “when I discovered that working men’s clubs had a colour bar on their doors. You could only get in if you were white. That really shook me. I couldn’t work it out.”

After working as a bricklayer, among other jobs, he joined his first band, the punk outfit Squad, inspired by the Clash and the Sex Pistols. “I realised it didn’t seem that difficult,” Hall said. “They didn’t seem like they could play very well either, so the thing was to form a band then work it out. That’s what we did.”

His older sister, and guiding influence, Teresa introduced him to Trojan Records, while it was David Bowie’s 1975 album Young Americans that pushed Hall towards becoming a singer, he told the Guardian in 2009.

Then came the Specials. The band released their self-titled debut album in October 1979 and received mass acclaim for blending a punk sensibility – and sharp lyrics about the degradation of modern Britain – with the traditional Jamaican ska sound, even explicitly updating hits by the likes of Toots and the Maytals, Prince Buster and Dandy Livingstone.

The multiracial group were active in the Rock Against Racism movement, played benefit concerts for anti-racist and anti-nuclear organisations, and also supported the 1978 Right to Work march protesting unemployment.

After the success of Ghost Town in 1981, the band split bitterly that July. “It felt like the perfect moment to stop the Specials part one,” Hall said. “We’d gone from seven kids in the back of a van to being presented with gold discs and I never felt massively comfortable with that.

Hall formed Fun Boy Three with his Specials bandmates Lynval Golding and Neville Staple. They also enjoyed chart success for several years, collaborating twice with girl band Bananarama, on It Ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It) and Really Saying Something. Hall would also land a Top 10 single with Our Lips Are Sealed, a song he co-wrote with US indie star – and then romantic partner – Jane Wiedlin for her band the Go-Go’s.

Hall would form another band, the Colourfield, in 1984, which had a hit with Thinking of You. He became a frequent collaborator over subsequent decades, working with the likes of the Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie, US actress Blair Booth, Toots and the Maytals, Lily Allen, Blur’s Damon Albarn – and later with his band Gorillaz – and Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart with whom he formed a duo known as Vegas in 1992.

Hall wasn’t part of a Specials reunion, the Specials Mk 2, which lasted from 1993 to 1998. He released his debut solo album in 1994, Home, produced by Broudie; a follow-up, Laugh, came in 1997.

In 2008, inspired by the Pixies’ reunion in 2004, Hall announced that he would be reforming the Specials for a tour and new music, albeit without founding member Jerry Dammers, who claimed he had been forced out.

They embarked on a 30th anniversary tour in 2009 and performed at the 2012 London Olympics closing concert, but faced the death of drummer John Bradbury, and the departure of vocalist Neville Staple and guitarist Roddy Radiation over the next few years.

In 2019, they released a new album, Encore, which featured Khan performing on a new song, 10 Commandments. It charted at No 1 in the UK albums chart – their highest-ever album placing. “Achieving a first No 1 album in our 60s restored our faith in humanity,” Hall told the Quietus.

Hall struggled to write lyrics for a follow-up, he said. “The arrival of the pandemic affected me enormously. I spent around three months trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t write a single word. I spent the time trying to figure out how not to die.” Instead, they covered historic protest songs and released Protest Songs 1924-2012 in 2021, which peaked at No 2.

Hall was still struggling with his mental health, he admitted around this time. In 2003, he had begun self-medicating with alcohol. In the last decade of his life, he sought medication, having been wary of it since being put on Valium as a teenager, as well as taking up art therapy.

Hall is survived by his wife, director Lindy Heymann. They had one son; Hall has two older sons with his ex-wife, Jeanette Hall.

In 2019, Hall told Uncut magazine that he had been enjoying his 60s, an age he had aspired to since being a 27-year-old fan of musical lifers Andy Williams, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. “You have to shut everything out to do that,” he said. “I feel blessed to have reached that stage. A lot of people think that 60 is part of the downward spiral, which it is if you allow it to be, but you can fight it and say, no it isn’t – it’s just part of this story.”