The Two Tone Story [Paperback]

Now with ska back in fashion, the time is right for Marshall to tell the story of the first ska rebirth. It's a story of the first ska rebirth. It's a story he tells with flair and commitment, and one which deserves to be widely read.

George Marshall's book follows the fortunes of Coventry's Tamla Motown from its inception to the present day (well, Nelson Mandella's release) with a fan's eye to detail . . . As an epitaph, The Two Tone Story is similar to the label's music - fast, involving and tinged with realism.

Even if you hated the music, this is a fascinating case study.

It's tempting to dismiss the editor of Zoot! skazine and Skinhead Times as yet another living museum trapped in, but this volume is too well written and researched to be dismissed as fanzine froth.

The complete guide to everything 2 Tone, the ska label thathelped redefine British music in the late Seventies and early Eighties. This is British ska!

This are 2 Tone. Pure and simple.

1979. The dawning of a new era. The 2 Tone era. An era that was to see good old black and white dance music walk all over the colourful circus of pretty faces that rock n' roll had become. This is the story of the rise and fall of 2 Tone. Complete with full discography, The Two Tone Story takes you back to the days when bands like The Specials, Madness and The Beat led the way onto the nation's dancefloors. Prepare to party!

George Marshall has championed street music, and particularly ska, for well over a decade. His love of 2 Tone began in 1979 and has now lasted over 20 years. He has also written Total Madness about one time 2 Tone label signing, Madness, and several over books about the skinhead cult.

Like a certain national pastime, the music business is a funny old game. Some of the strangest creatures find fame and fortune, while some of the most talented never graduate beyond playing down their local to a handful of punters and a dog. Such is the way of the world I suppose. But you can forget how the story goes, because genuine overnight success in the music business is about as common as a bacon roll at a barmitzvah. Jerry Dammers, you'll be pleased to hear, might not be one of life's bacon rolls, but I'm sure he'd be the first to agree that he's certainly a strange (and talented) creature. Music journalists have been trying to put their finger on him ever since he first hoisted the Jolly Roger over the 2 Tone camp, but good old Jerry is far too complex a character to be confined to paper by mere words. Jerry Dammers is the legendary mad professor personified. His bumbling exterior, complete with a gormless, toothless smile, was the perfect disguise for the buzzing hive of ideas and activity hiding behind it. A sort of Mr. Magoo with vision. On stage, Dammers was as mad as a hatter, jumping around behind the keyboards like a man possessed. Off stage, he came across as a quiet introvert, who never liked giving interviews. He preferred to let the music do the talking. And as someone once said, "Some people like to blow their own trumpet, but Jerry doesn't even have a trumpet." Dammers, whose real name is Jeremy David Hounsell-Dammers (and not Gerald Dankey as is almost universally believed) was born in India, where his father was working, on the 22nd of May, 1954. He lived there with his family for the first two years of his life before moving back to England, first to Sheffield and then on to Coventry. His father was a member of the clergy, and Jerry was brought up in a strict, respectable vicarage. And how he hated it! He hated having to go to church and he hated having to sing in the choir. By the time he'd reached his teens, he started to rebel against everything his family stood for. "I used to go a bit mad," Dammers once said. "I used to be a mod. A mini-mod. Then I grew my hair longer. When I was 15, I planned to run away from home. I went with a friend to Ireland to some island off the coast. It was a sort of hippy commune. I stuck it for two weeks and then went back home. When I came back, I freaked out completely. I got into this suedehead type of thing. When I was about 17, I got badly into drink and vandalism. I used to get really pissed and put my feet through shop windows and things like that." His career as a drunken vandal came to an abrupt end one summer when he went on holiday to Torquay with a load of mates. They were walking down the middle of the road and forced an approaching car to stop. But the car, with its family of holiday-makers inside, didn't stop quickly enough for our Jerry who climbed onto its roof and started jumping up and down. That was until the roof collapsed. He ended up in court and received a hefty 250 fine. He left school at 16 with one O-Level in Art to his credit and then went to art college, first to Nottingham and then to Coventry's Lanchester Polytechnic, where he spent most of his time making cartoon films. Although he got his degree, he never bothered to collect it. Apart from his interest in film-making, Dammers had always wanted to be in a band. Early influences were skinhead reggae from his suedehead days and bands like Slade and The Faces, but it was seeing The Who perform My Generation on television that finally made up his mind to be a musician. "It wasn't the flash or the glamour of it. It was just the music. I hate the flash of it. I hate the glamour." You've heard words like those countless times, usually spoken with all of the sincerity of a Maggie Thatcher blow-up doll, but when they come out of Dammers' mouth, you can take them as gospel. While most musicians do anything to get their mug in the 'papers, Jerry would do anything to keep his out. In fact, if it wasn't necessary to promote his music, chances are you would never have heard of Jerry Dammers at all. After leaving school, Jerry played in a lot of bands with great names like Peggy Penguin & The Southside Greeks and The Sissy Stone Soul Band, but with little else than great names to offer the public. For his sins, he ended up doing country & western, rock n' roll, reggae, funky soul, the works. He was also writing a lot of songs at the time (Dammers penned Little Bitch, which eventually appeared on The Specials' debut album, when he was 15), but nobody wanted to play them. Those were the days of bubble gum pop and little else, with most small time bands never venturing beyond a set of covers. Then punk happened. Bands like The Sex Pistols knocked the music business clean off its feet, at least temporarily. These young upstarts could hardly play their instruments ("The Damned can play three chords. The Adverts can play one. Hear all four at . . . ") and there they were taking on the world! Anyone could be in a punk band, and at the time it seemed like everyone was. Punk was just what Dammers had been waiting for . . .