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The Specials have always been a protest band according to guitarist and vocalist Lynval Golding. “From day one, we were a multiracial line-up and that was a statement,” he says. The Specials are in a rehearsal studio in south London, preparing for a forthcoming tour. Only Hall, Golding and Panter remain from the original line up, and the rapport between them is relaxed and humorous. The 70-year-old Golding is rambling and loquacious, Horace (67) offers up thoughtful analysis, while Hall (62) chips in, slipping almost imperceptibly between grave seriousness and deadpan humour. He rarely breaks into a smile.

But Ultra Modern Nursery Rhymes failed to make the charts. Similarly, there were few takers for Vegas, the electronic duo he formed with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, or indeed for Hall’s 90s solo albums Home and Laugh, despite the strength of their songs – listen to Hall’s version of the Lightning Seeds’ Sense, which he co-wrote with Ian Broudie, or the glorious chiming guitars of Sonny and His Sister. Better still was 2003’s The Hour of Two Lights, which found Hall collaborating with Mushtaq Uddin of Fun-Da-Mental: a remarkably ambitious album of musical fusions that involved Algerian rappers, Polish Gypsy band Romany Rad, a 12-year-old Lebanese vocalist and jazz pianist Zoe Rahman. It could have been a worthy mess, but instead it worked, conjuring up a sense of global menace. If anyone conversant with the Specials’ oeuvre could spot Hall’s vocals a mile off, it was still like nothing else he’d released, testament to his musical restlessness. 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. (2/4) Hall remained active with The Specials into this year, with their last show together taking place at Escot Park in Devon on August 20. The band’s last release with Hall was the compilation ‘Protest Songs 1924-2012’, which arrived last September. Ever the laconic contrarian, Hall closed Laugh with a deadpan but faithful cover of Todd Rundgren’s FM radio staple, I Saw The Light. Filename G:\EAC What\Terry Hall - Laugh... Plus (1997)\04. Terry Hall - Laugh... plus - Take It Forever.wav

The Specials are about to release a new album, Protest Songs 1924-2012, featuring the 2-Tone champions’ typically heartfelt take on protest music from the past 100 years. The band put their unique stamp on activist anthems and songs of grievance by The Staples Singers, Bob Marley, Leonard Cohen, Frank Zappa and Talking Heads, spanning a succession of unpopular wars and righteous causes. Their famously dour frontman, however, remains pessimistic about the power of song to affect real political change.

Filename G:\EAC What\Terry Hall - Laugh... Plus (1997)\12. Terry Hall - Laugh... plus - Working Class Hero (Live).wav If no one was going to rank 2019’s Encore or 2021’s Protest Songs over Specials and More Specials, they were far better than a naysayer might have suggested a Specials album would be without the input of Dammers, who after all had been the band’s architect, chief songwriter and de facto leader in their heyday. Both albums were admirably uninterested in simply warming over the old Specials sound: you got the feeling that the same restless spirit that had powered Hall’s solo career was behind their diversions into everything from funk to Frank Zappa covers.A special edition of the album was released in 2009 by Edsel record label. The new version featured all of the B-sides from the two singles along with liner notes by Rhoda Dakar. Today, however, the three Specials' ebullience is such that it even seems to reflect on their history. "I've got to admit, this time around I feel a lot more at ease with the other people in the band, but I thought the first time around was absolutely brilliant," says Bradbury. "Needless to say, a lot of people look for the downside more than the fun side, in terms of journalism. A lot of the good side never got discussed." Co-wrote "Sense", "Where Flowers Fade" and "A Small Slice of Heaven" with The Lightning Seeds from Sense.