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“We could do so much better than this.”
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Terence Edward "Terry" Hall (March 19, 1959–December 18, 2022) was an English musician and the lead singer of The Specials. Hall's also been in other groups, including The Fun Boy Three, The Colourfield, Terry, Blair & Anouchka and Vega.
Early Life[]
Terrence Edward "Terry" Hall was born on March 19th, 1959. At age 12, on a school trip to France, Hall was abducted and sexually abused by a paedophile ring. He mirrors this in the Fun Boy Three song, Well Fancy That. He left school before his fifteenth birthday, taking various short-term jobs, including bricklayer, quantity surveyor, and apprentice hairdresser. At age 19, Hall joined The Coventry Automatics. In 1979, The Coventry Automatics changed their name to The Special AKA, though they eventually dropped the AKA.
Before Gorillaz[]
The Specials[]
The Specials, also known as The Special AKA, were a 2-tone ska band from Coventry formed in 1977. After some early changes, the first stable lineup of the group included Terry Hall and Neville Staple on vocals, Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation on guitars, Horace Panter on bass, Jerry Dammers on keyboards, John Bradbury on drums, and Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez on horns. The group achieved considerable success with a string of hit singles, including "Gangsters," "A Message To You Rudy," "Too Much Too Young," "Rat Race," and "Do Nothing." In 1981, the group released what's widely considered their greatest achievement: "Ghost Town," which topped the UK charts for three weeks. The group intended to start work on their third LP after releasing the non-album single as a stopgap. However, disagreements over the band's direction had come to a head, and after performing their hit single on Top of the Pops, Hall, Staple, and Golding announced to the rest of the band that they were leaving to form their own group, The Fun Boy Three.
While Hall did not participate in the 1990s reformation of the Specials, he joined a subsequent reformation in 2008 and continued to front the group until his death in 2022.
The Fun Boy Three[]
The Fun Boy Three were an English new wave pop band active from 1981 to 1983 and formed by singers Terry Hall, Neville Staple, and Lynval Golding after they left The Specials.
The Fun Boy Three reduced the ska sound that they and Jerry Dammers had crafted with brilliant success with The Specials and initially took a more minimal approach, focussing on percussion and vocals. For their second album, they assembled a six-piece backing group, including a cellist and a trombonist, allowing the record to feature more diverse and expansive arrangements and enabling them to play live instead of being purely a studio group as previously. The band enjoyed six UK Top 20 hits, including "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)" and "Tunnel of Love," and created two albums, of which the eponymous Fun Boy Three was the most successful. The follow-up album, Waiting (produced by David Byrne), was well-received critically but did not sell as well.
Other projects[]
While touring with The Fun Boy Three, Hall struck up a friendship with Karl Shale and Toby Lyons of support band The Swinging Cats and ended up forming the group The Colourfield with them, issuing two albums and achieving a hit single with "Thinking Of You." Lighter pop projects like Terry, Blair & Anouchka and the synthpop duo Vegas with David A. Stewart of Eurythmics were less successful. During the 1990s, Hall issued two solo albums and formed an intermittent writing partnership with Ian Broudie, contributing to several Lightning Seeds albums with songs including the Top 20 singles "What You Do" (which subsequently gave its title to the Lightning Seeds' first "best of" album) and "Lucky You." The last Hall composition issued during his lifetime would be another Lightning Seeds song, "Emily Smiles," on the 2022 album See You In The Stars.
Blur[]
Before appearing as a guest on the Gorillaz song 911, Hall and Damon Albarn collaborated on a 1995 reissue of Hall's album, Sense. Albarn and Hall both worked on the song Chasing a Rainbow. In 1996, Albarn invited Hall to perform live with Blur, where they covered the Specials song Nite Klub.
Gorillaz[]
In 2001, Hall appeared as a guest on the Gorillaz & D12 collaboration single "911," a song about the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Hall sang the chorus along with Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, having D12 rap their verses, and the song was performed live at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City as part of the Gorillaz Live tour, which was later made available digitally on Spotify with the title "911 (Live in NYC)." He also featured on the dub reworkings album Laika Come Home, providing vocals for the single "Lil' Dub Chefin'."
Albarn, who included Hall's vocals on one of his projects, later returned the favour, co-writing and singing parts of "Ten Eleven" on Terry Hall and Mushtaq's 2007 album Hour of Two Lights.
Impact on Gorillaz[]
The Specials (along with Fun Boy Three and Massive Attack) were a key influence on Gorillaz music. In the Gorillaz mockumentary special Gorillaz: Charts of Darkness, Terry Hall makes a very brief cameo appearance saying “The biggest influence on Gorillaz is me,” answering the question of who was the biggest inspiration for Gorillaz. It wasn’t a mere joke, as Albarn himself has stated this and said that the sound of Gorillaz’s debut album was a combination of the sounds of The Specials and Massive Attack. 2-D's name was also originally Terry, being a nod to Hall.
Discography[]
With The Specials[]
- Dawning of A New Era (1994, Recorded in 1978)
- Specials (1979)
- More Specials (1980)
- Ghost Town (Single, 1981)
- Encore (2019)
- Protest Songs 1924-2012 (2022)
With The Fun Boy Three[]
- Fun Boy Three (1982)
- Waiting (1983)
With The Colourfield[]
- Virgins and Philistines (1985)
- Deception (1987)
With Terry, Blair & Anouchka[]
- Ultra Modern Nursery Rhymes (1990)
With Vegas[]
- Vegas (1992)
Solo Releases[]
- Home (1994) (Reissue: 1995, featuring a song by Damon Albarn)
- Laugh (1997)
With Mushtaq[]
- The Hour of Two Lights (2003) (featuring Damon Albarn on track 3)
Trivia[]
- Terry Hall was the ninth collaborator of the Gorillaz to pass away.
- In 2004, Hall attempted to commit suicide following his diagnosis of manic depression. He later became a patron of the charity, Tonic Music for Mental Health.
- Hall has two sons, Theo/Leo Hall and Felix Hall, from his first marriage to Jeanette Hall. He also had one son with his second wife, Lindy Heymann.
- Hall was a Manchester United fan.
- Police arrested Terry Hall and Jerry Dammers during a concert with The Specials, charging them with incitement to riot. They were both fined £1,000 each.
- Before joining The Specials (The Coventry Automatics at the time), Hall was a member of a local punk band called Squad. He gained his first writing credit for their single "Red Alert," though he did not perform on it as he had left the group by the time of recording.