Considered one of British pop’s best, Terry Corridor helped pioneer a complete new motion with The Specials earlier than utilising his famously deadpan skills in quite a few equally intriguing bands, aspect initiatives, supergroups and solo releases
The Specials – Specials (1979)
Previously generally known as The Coventry Automatics, The Specials turned their West Midlands hometown into an unlikely cultural hub in direction of the top of the 70s, infusing the music of Jamaica with a distinctly British punk spirit to pioneer the sound that grew to become generally known as 2 Tone.
That includes the guitarists Lynval Golding and Roddy ‘Radiation’ Byers, bass participant Horace Panter and, ultimately, drummer John Bradbury, in addition to roadie-turned-singer Neville Staple and poker-faced vocalist Terry Corridor, the band had been fashioned by chief songwriter Jerry Dammers with the intention of placing Coventry on the map. And after being found by Joe Strummer, resulting in a assist slot on The Conflict’s Out On Parole Tour, the seven-piece quickly achieved their purpose.
In fact, The Specials didn’t all the time paint town in probably the most flattering gentle, the vast majority of their authentic materials reflecting on the hardships of suburban life through the early years of Thatcherite Britain. Concrete Jungle was written by Byers about being chased by the Nationwide Entrance, whereas It’s Up To You and Doesn’t Make It Alright each additional deal with the band’s experiences of racism head on. And Too A lot Too Younger, a stay recording of which might later give the band a controversial No.1, is a kitchen sink vignette by which the band present their blatant disdain in direction of an adolescent mom.
A Message To You Rudy
Though The Specials had been admirably eager to name out society’s prejudices, this rhetoric might typically tip over into sexism. Amid the chatter and chinking glasses of Nite Klub, Corridor declares “All the ladies are slags,” for instance. And Little Bitch is downright nasty, berating a younger woman for her look, bed-wetting tendencies and suicidal cries for consideration. It’s little surprise the group quickly dropped the monitor from their set.
Whereas not all the band’s lyrical themes have aged notably properly, a telling signal of their late teenage years, the music nonetheless stays positively thrilling. The Specials had been notably skilful in adapting ska classics for the New Wave crowd, with Silly Marriage downgrading the homicide expenses of Prince Buster’s Decide Dread to vengeful vandalism (with a bit assist from Chrissie Hynde besides) and Do The Canine turning Rufus Thomas’ authentic right into a commentary on the rising ranges of subcultural violence.
Elvis Costello, in the meantime, was the right selection of producer, his unfussy strategy brilliantly recapturing the uncooked power of the band’s stay reveals. As opening mission statements go, this was fairly particular.
The Specials – Extra Specials (1980)
As its title steered, The Specials’ second LP initially gave the impression to be extra of the identical. Facet One was bookended by repurposed covers, with music corridor customary Take pleasure in Your self was a pogo-inducing ska anthem concerning the rising chance of nuclear assaults and the kitsch Northern Soul of Sock It To ’Em J.B. updating the James Bond references of Rex Garvin’s authentic.
The gloominess of life below a Tory authorities was nonetheless the default theme. Terry Corridor’s first writing credit score Man At C&A ramped up the Chilly Battle paranoia additional. Hey, Little Wealthy Woman charted the fortunes of a younger girl whose huge metropolis goals are exploited by the porn business. And in case you continue to hadn’t twigged that the Coventry outfit weren’t the image of contentment, Pearl’s Cafe, a collaboration with future The Particular AKA member Rhoda Dakar – explicitly declared “It’s all a load of bollocks.”
Take pleasure in Your self
Nevertheless, with Dammers itching to broaden the group’s horizons – “I didn’t need us to finish up like Unhealthy Manners,” he advised Uncut – Facet Two knocked everybody, together with his personal bandmates, for six. Impressed by the lodge foyer music that grew to become an inadvertent soundtrack of their earlier tour, Dammers pursued an intriguing melting pot of straightforward listening kinds worlds aside from the two Tone that had gone earlier than.
Stereotype/Stereotypes Pt.2 throws in the whole lot from bossa nova to Bach whereas depicting how a median man’s life descends into STD-contracting, alcohol-heavy and police-evading chaos. Worldwide Jet Set ventures into Center Jap psychedelia, concluding with the harrowing ultimate cries from a passenger aircraft about to crash land. There’s even a calypso instrumental, Vacation Fortnight.
Extra Specials has been credited with each pioneering trip-hop and foreshadowing the lounge music revival, whereas it additionally repeated the High 5 success of its predecessor. But it proved the dying knell for The Specials’ authentic incarnation. Annoyed at Dammers’ “my manner or the freeway” strategy and the pressures of the business treadmill, the band splintered shortly after the era-defining single Ghost City gave them a second No.1.
Enjoyable Boy Three – The Enjoyable Boy Three (1982)
“The sound of three folks despatched psychological by being in The Specials,” was how Terry Corridor described the 1981 offshoot he fashioned with Golding and Staple to The Guardian in 2009. Enjoyable Boy Three’s self-titled debut album does certainly have a One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest vibe, from the deranged assortment of animal noises and soccer whistles that pervade Funrama 2 to the truth that its lead single – an assault on both the Thatcher/Reagan particular relationship or their new musical foe, Jerry Dammers, relying by yourself interpretation – was titled The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum).
However there was additionally technique to their insanity, with the trio – now sporting Persil-white singlets somewhat than two-tone fits – firmly subscribing to the speculation that much less is extra throughout 11 tracks, eclectic as they had been sparse.
Though its musical palette, co-produced with common Specials cohort Dave Jordan, not often expands past primitive percussion, inexpressive chants and Sprechgesang, The Enjoyable Boy Three nonetheless manages to each intrigue and innovate.
Taking Over …
Religion, Hope And Charity finds the boys tiptoeing onto the dancefloor with a rhythmic mix of metallic funk, distinctly British hip-hop, and early minimalist techno. I Don’t Consider It adopts nursery rhyme melodies and paranoia-soaked reggae to rally towards the surveillance of Black Britain, whereas Greatest Of Luck Mate is a dub poem a few debt-ridden man whose makes an attempt to flee poverty are thwarted by his day by day journeys to the bookies.
In fact, Enjoyable Boy Three’s most invaluable contribution to the popular culture of the early 80s was its introduction of the period’s largest girlband. Bananarama, found by Corridor because of an article in The Face, lend their nonchalant tones to 4 tracks together with the haunting Gregorian vibes of opener Sanctuary and world-weary nearer, Alone. However it’s on the playful cowl of High 5 hit T’aint What You Do (It’s The Method That You Do It), a jazz customary recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, the place Siobhan, Keren and Sara make their presence identified. “The place will we go to from right here?/ What sort of sound will we comply with?” FB3 ask on Method On Down. Minimalistic, mysterious and mischievous pop gave the impression to be the reply.
Enjoyable Boy Three – Ready (1983)
After returning the favour on Bananarama collab Actually Saying One thing and in addition masking the George Gershwin customary Summertime, Enjoyable Boy Three dramatically ended their run of 5 straight High 20 hits with The Extra I See (The Much less I Consider), a bleak meditation on The Troubles that facetiously completed with the punchline, “Does anybody know any jokes?”
Fortunately, the trio’s second album had a couple of extra bankable hits up its sleeve, specifically the surprising tango of The Tunnel Of Love and, most notably, Our Lips Are Sealed. This co-written gem with The Go-Go’s Jane Wiedlin, with whom Corridor had a short-lived romance, went on to be a success for her personal girlband, too.
Helmed by David Byrne, apparently the group’s second selection of producer after Brian Eno turned them down, Ready isn’t as huge a leap ahead as its predecessor.
Homicide She Stated finds the trio paying homage to the theme from Margaret Rutherford’s Miss Marple movies of the 60s, maybe an indication Dammers’ penchant for straightforward listening had rubbed off greater than they’d admit. The Strain Of Life (Takes The Weight Off The Physique), in the meantime, harked again to the bouncy ska of The Specials’ debut.
Maybe conscious they’d run their course, Terry Corridor once more moved on, leaving Enjoyable Boy Three as one of many decade’s most curious two-album wonders.
The Colourfield – Virgins And Philistines (1985)
Named after a mid-Fifteenth century type of summary art work, The Colourfield (initially The Color Discipline) noticed Terry Corridor distance himself barely from the monochromatic persona that had guided his earlier two outfits to chart success. He might nonetheless rival Morrissey when it got here to lyrical bitterness, after all. “However me and the cat personal the lease on the flat and nothing you do will ever change that,” he sneers at an ex-girlfriend for having the audacity to go away on Take. And he can hardly comprise his resentment on the animal activism of Merciless Circus (“Fur coats on ugly folks/ Expensively dressed as much as kill/ In a sport that’s authorized/ Throughout the minds of the mentally unwell”).
Nevertheless, joined by guitarist Toby Lyons and bass participant Karl Shale, who’d each plied their commerce in one other Coventry-based ska act, The Swinging Cats, Virgins And Philistinesadditionally presents some gentle to go along with all of the shade. “I don’t detest the whole lot, simply most issues,” Corridor stated on Music Field TV, arguably the closest he ever got here to expressing a way of optimism.
Pile On The Agony
Album opener Considering Of You, which options backing vocals from huge fan (and apparently studio cleaner) Katrina Phillips, surrounds its pleas for a misplaced love with the form of orchestral pop that made Burt Bacharach and Hal David probably the most in-demand songwriters of the 60s. Castles In The Air combines open-road smooth rock with prospers of flamenco, whereas Hammond Music turns folks rock trio The Roches’ authentic right into a lushly harmonised affair that’s harking back to classic Simon And Garfunkel.
Though a lot of Virgins And Philistines harks again to the sounds of Corridor’s youth, there are shades of the jangle-pop motion that only a 12 months later would coalesce on the C86 cassette, maybe an indication that Hugh Jones had extra of an affect than fellow co-producer Jeremy Inexperienced.
Showing to consider this was one musical reinvention too many, a choose few Corridor followers reacted to The Colourfield’s first stay reveals with fixed heckles. A philistine response, you might say, to an album which painted the everlasting miserabilist in refreshingly expressive strokes.
The Colourfield – Deception (1987)
Terry Corridor had known as it a day along with his earlier two outfits at some extent by which audiences had been left wanting extra. The truth that The Colourfield’s troublesome second album barely scraped the UK’s High 100 and, in a profession first, spawned zero High 40 singles means that the musical wanderer ought to have pressed the cease-and-desist button even earlier third time round.
The band appeared to have been simply as dissatisfied as their followers. Shale left the undertaking halfway via recording, whereas Corridor failed to ascertain a reference to each the session musicians introduced in as his substitute and producers Jeffrey Lesser (The Chieftains) and Richard Gottehrer (Blondie).
Deception’s troubled backstory, subsequently, means that it’s an album of automobile crash proportions. However whereas it’s undoubtedly slicker and glossier than something its frontman did earlier than – and after, too – it additionally boasts a number of tracks worthy of gracing a Corridor Greatest Of.
Confession, one of many two tracks on the LP that characteristic Tears For Fears’ Roland Orzabal, and Coronary heart Of America each echo the well-crafted pop that will flip cult heroes Aztec Digicam and Prefab Sprout into chart issues only a 12 months later.
Operating Away
Including to Corridor’s checklist of unlikely cowl variations, the emphatic funk of Sly And The Household Stone’s Operating Away proved he might nonetheless push himself out of his consolation zone. And Miss Texas 1967 is a gorgeously melancholic piece of lounge pop about an old-school magnificence queen, which means that the nice pessimist Corridor was an ardent viewer of prime-time tv cleaning soap opera, Dallas.
There are indicators elsewhere, nonetheless, that Corridor had misplaced his mojo, and never simply the glum entrance cowl portrait, both: the album’s anodyne cowl of The Monkees’ She, for instance, or the artificial soul of Digging It Deep which succumbed to all of the worst excesses of late-80s productions in addition to the ‘moon in June’ strategy to lyrics (“Oh how I want I liked the human race/ Oh how I want I had a reasonably face… I’m glad and lazy/ And also you’re unhappy and loopy”). After six albums in eight years, Corridor maybe properly took a prolonged break towards the top of the last decade that he’d helped to outline.
Terry, Blair & Anouchka – Extremely Fashionable Nursery Rhymes (1990)
For “individuals who can hum a tune while hoovering”. That’s how Blair Sales space, who, alongside future psychoanalyst and author Anouchka Grose joined Terry Corridor’s most carefree aspect undertaking, described their sole album Extremely Fashionable Nursery Rhymes.
It’s a good remark. Bonded by their love of 60s pop – their first single was a canopy of Captain & Tennille’s Love Will Maintain Us Collectively – Terry, Blair And Anouchka served up a sound as refreshingly easy as their moniker and infrequently, each bit as catchy because the Shake’n’Vac jingle.
The opening title monitor, for example, is a reassuring piece of fatherly recommendation on the pressures of life which threatens to burst into the theme to Pink Dwarf. Lead single Lacking is the form of witty kitchen sink portrait The Lovely South topped the charts with that very same 12 months. And Three Cool Catz is a doo-wop tackle Leiber & Stoller’s customary whose title basically sums up the entire undertaking.
Certainly, so out of the cultural loop, Anouchka initially thought it was Jerry Corridor who needed a guitarist and declined. Blair, who would later kind Break From The Outdated Routine hitmakers Oui 3, was impressed that she didn’t know who Terry was. Nevertheless, collectively they look like having a blast on a retro flight of fancy which charms and delights in equal measure. And remarkably, so does Terry.
Vegas – Vegas (1992)
Out of all Terry Corridor’s many artistic endeavours, Vegas seems to be the one misplaced to time. Solely a handful of its 10 tracks have racked up quite a lot of thousand Spotify streams, and it’s largely been not possible to acquire a bodily copy since its 1992 launch. That’s a bit stunning contemplating it did spawn his ultimate UK High 40 hit (Possessed) and was spearheaded by a person who, again within the early 80s, had achieved for synth-pop what Corridor had achieved for ska.
Vegas was born out of a songwriting session with Dave Stewart for the Ramones, however there’s little in the way in which of primitive rock’n’roll on an album which is extra Caribbean island than CBGBs.
Stroll Into The Wind is a hushed reggae quantity which reunites Corridor with Siobhan Fahey to haunting impact. Clever Man evolves from stately chamber music to beachside dub full with a chuckling toaster pontificating on the fleeting nature of fame. Whisper it quietly and Take Me For What I Am might even be mistaken for UB40 again of their chart-topping prime.
Extra in line with Stewart’s Eurythmics days, the squelchy electronica of The Thought Of You and a curious rendition of Charles Aznavour’s basic chanson She seem to have wandered in from a distinct aspect undertaking altogether. However whereas hardly Corridor’s most important album, Vegas nonetheless strikes it wealthy.
Terry Corridor – House (1994)
After 15 years and 5 totally different group initiatives, Terry Corridor lastly determined to go solo in 1994, albeit with a bit assist from a lot of his friends. Certainly, House’s credit learn like a who’s who of Nineteen Eighties guitar pop, with Nick Heyward, The Smiths’ Craig Gannon in addition to XTC’s Andy Partridge all becoming a member of producer Ian Broudie on songwriting duties and The Icicle Works’ drummer Chris Sharrock and Echo And The Bunnymen’s bassist Les Pattinson lending a hand within the studio.
The Britpop motion, that within the wake of Positively Possibly and Parklife was quick reaching its business zenith, was additionally eager to get on board, too. Blur’s Damon Albarn guested on Chasing A Rainbow, the hovering indie-pop quantity added to its particular version a 12 months later, whereas Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker remixed opening lead single Eternally J, a bittersweet paean to Corridor’s soon-to-be ex-wife Jeanette which instantly set the classicist pop tone.
Regardless of its star-studded pedigree, the LP as soon as once more noticed Corridor languishing within the decrease reaches of the UK’s High 100, maybe the largest chart injustice of the journeyman’s profession contemplating how effortlessly it aligned with the Cool Britannia period.
The Extra You Get, The Extra You Need
Sense, a barely grittier model of The Lightning Seeds tune he had co-written two years beforehand, was additionally robbed of a High 40 place. However the album’s true highlights are elsewhere: the sweeping cinematic energy pop of What’s Flawed With Me, the ode to loneliness of grammatical nightmare I Don’t Obtained You, the bitter kiss-off I Drew A Lemon by which Corridor proves he’s not solely averse to the odd dad joke (“I believed we’d final endlessly/ However you drew the curtains/ And pulled your self collectively”).
The coquettish feminine harmonies that permeate No No No and First Assault Of Love recall to mind the vocal interaction of The Human League. Whereas You boasts one in every of Corridor’s best zingers (“If ifs and ands had been pots and pans, you’d be a kitchen”). On paper, House is just a minor footnote within the stressed artistic’s profession, and but, as his most constantly robust physique of labor, it’s arguably one thing of a misplaced basic.
Terry Corridor – Chortle (1997)
Having waited such a very long time to go it alone, Terry Corridor struck whereas the iron was comparatively scorching by releasing his second solo album simply three years after his first. Co-produced with Craig Gannon along with future Rolling Stones cohort Cenzo Townshend, the ironically-titled Chortle is a bit more downbeat than its predecessor, little question reflecting the very fact the star was nonetheless recovering from a painful divorce.
Including The Excessive Llamas frontman Sean O’Hagan to his spectacular checklist of collaborators, Glad Go Fortunate is a mournful piece of chamber pop which performs out like a relationship autopsy. Channelling Pulp of their Britpop prime, Ballad Of A Landlord is a scathing riposte to a former lover who’s found that the grass isn’t all the time greener on the opposite aspect (“How I lengthy to style the secrets and techniques/ Out of your land of phoney tears”). The title of Damon Albarn co-write A Room Full Of Nothing, an unhinged waltz which captures the Britpop comedown as successfully as Blur’s self-titled LP from earlier within the 12 months, says all of it.
I Noticed The Gentle
Even the songs which on the floor look like stuffed with hope are, actually, drenched in despair. The Byrds-esque Summer season Follows Spring sound is tailored for a romantic stroll within the park, however is one more smackdown to a dishonest ex. And the equally jangly Sonny And His Sister, co-penned with long-time fan Stephen Duffy, is a few man left so adrift by a break-up that he seeks recommendation from a teen journal’s issues web page.
Chortle does finish on a barely extra optimistic be aware, a buoyant cowl of Todd Rundgren’s smooth rock serenade I Noticed The Gentle which is completely in line with the album’s basic radio vibes. However failing to search out catharsis in such soul-baring (“I believed, ‘Why am I placing myself via this?’” he later advised The Guardian. “I imply, I can keep away from doing this”), Corridor acknowledged that the singer-songwriter strategy wasn’t for him. Certainly, though Chortle grew to become his highest-charting LP since The Colourfield’s debut, his solo profession met the identical two-albums-and-out destiny, now his forte.
Corridor & Mushtaq – The Hour Of Two Lights (2003)
Maybe impressed by common collaborator Damon Albarn’s world music ventures, in 2003 Terry Corridor teamed up with Mushtaq of ethno-techno outfit Enjoyable-Da-Psychological for an audacious East-meets-West affair launched via the Blur frontman’s Trustworthy Jon’s label.
The Hour Of Two Lights additionally roped in everybody from 12-year-old Lebanese singer Nathalie Barghach and 70-something clarinettist Eddie Mordue to Algerian blind rapper Oujdi and Polish gypsy folkies Romany Rad on 11 eclectic tracks residing as much as the “up to date nomad music” promised by the duo.
Corridor sometimes takes centrestage, as on A Story Of Woe, a sardonic oompah band ditty about life below an oppressive regime, and the brooding trip-hop of Stand Collectively, which exemplifies the pair’s idealistic strategy to world politics. However it’s the globe-trotting visitor vocals – Abdul Latif Assaly’s haunting cries on The Silent Wail, specifically – in addition to Mushtaq’s multi-cultural manufacturing that leaves an enduring impression.
Subsequently, Corridor usually finds himself within the uncommon place of being a supporting participant on his personal LP, the final to bear his title for 16 years. Nonetheless, this daring collision of sounds proved that almost a quarter-century into his profession, he was nonetheless something however predictable.
The Specials – Encore (2019)
After they reunited – with out their founding member Jerry Dammers, after all – in 2008, The Specials spent over a decade traversing down reminiscence lane earlier than realising, as Horace Panter succinctly put it to Bass Participant journal, they “had been in peril of turning into the Greatest Specials Tribute Band In The World.”
2019’s Encore was the treatment, a hotchpotch of canopy variations, re-recordings and originals which added to their discography for the primary time since 2001’s Conquering Ruler.
Solely Panter remained from that album’s equally trimmed-down line-up, with Terry Corridor and Lynval Golding changing Neville Staple and Roddy Byers on 10 tracks which unexpectedly returned Coventry’s best to the highest of the charts. Whereas the general public welcomed Encore with open arms, Dammers was removed from joyful, believing that any recent materials not blessed by his presence would destroy the ska legends’ legacy.
Embarrassed By You
With a number of new songs that will sit comfortably on any biggest hits assortment, that actually didn’t turn into the case. As its title suggests, B.L.M. is a strong anti-racism anthem which finds Golding reflecting on his father’s experiences as a Windrush immigrant. 10 Commandments solutions again to Prince Buster’s same-named show of misogyny with defiant spoken phrase from Saffiyah Khan, the political activist who famously rallied towards an EDL demo sporting a Specials T-shirt.
In the meantime The Life And Instances (Of A Man Known as Despair) sees Corridor dissect his personal psychological well being on a woozy mixture of spoken phrase and 60s lounge.
Aside from the taut funk of The Equals’ Black Pores and skin Blue Eyed Boys, the extra acquainted choices are much less inspiring. Renditions of Enjoyable Boy Three’s The Lunatics… and The Valentines’ Blam Blam Fever, the latter already tackled on the band’s earlier LP, recommend they had been cherrypicking from a restricted songbook, too.
But there’s nothing right here to besmirch The Specials’ title. Certainly, as nearer We Promote Hope, a wistful reggae quantity which basically summarises their complete ethos (“We’ve gotta maintain one another/ Do what it’s essential do/ With out making others endure”) attracts to an finish, all however their former chief could be left shouting “Encore”.
The Specials – Encore and Protest Songs 1924–2012 (2021)
After the double whammy of author’s block and the worldwide pandemic put paid to a deliberate album of roots reggae, The Specials as a substitute selected to comply with their unlikely studio comeback by basically holding up a group of musical placards.
In contrast to Chumbawamba’s equally themed 1988 album English Insurgent Songs, the trio principally seemed throughout the pond for protest inspiration: therefore campfire religious I Don’t Thoughts Failing In This World sits alongside Bob Marley and The Wailers’ call-to-arms Get Up, Stand Up, Rod McKuen’s anti-Vietnam Battle story Troopers Who Need To Be Heroes and The Staple Singers’ gospel basic Freedom Freeway.
The Specials’ “urge to rail towards what’s flawed with the world” additionally veers into some unlikely locations. Fairly how Jerry McCain’s My Subsequent Door Neighbor, a first-rate slice of rockabilly whose solely gripes concern the borrowing of family home equipment, matches the theme stays anybody’s guess. In the meantime, Leonard Cohen’s Everyone Is aware of, handled to a smoky jazz rendition right here by Corridor at his most debonair, is just right here because of its prominence in an Australian anti-smoking advert.
Ain’t Gonna Let No Hatred, Flip Me ’spherical
Protest Songs works greatest when it supplies a component of shock: the band have by no means sounded as energised as on the simple storage rock of Bother Each Day, Frank Zappa’s dissection of the Watts Riots in Los Angeles. Bradford vocalist Hannah Hu helps flip the anti-imperialism of Speaking Heads’ Listening Wind right into a ghostly blues-folk quantity which evokes PJ Harvey at her most intense.
And the oldest composition right here, civil rights favorite Ain’t Gonna Let No person Flip Us Round, is given the handclap a capella therapy earlier than being skanked up midway via.
Tragically, this century-spanning affair ended up serving as Terry Corridor’s swansong: 14 months on, he died from pancreatic most cancers at simply 63, forsaking a outstanding physique of labor that was regularly shifting in scope and sound. “Our lovely good friend, brother and one of the good singers, songwriters and lyricists this nation has ever produced,” remarked Golding and Panter in a tribute that few might protest.
Learn Extra: Celebrating 2 Tone Data with those that made it occur
