For a while in the 1980s it looked like Terry Hall was on a path to deliberately sabotage any career success he had. First he left The Specials when they were at the top of their game to work with Neville Staple and Lynval Golding in Funboy 3 which he immediately disbanded after the success of Waiting to form what was orginally a very acoustic and almost folky The Colourfield.
While my flatmates at uni were quite into The Specials I always preferred The Beat. I therefore did not start to fully appreciate Hall until Funboy 3 (whom I wrote about here).No one else could sing so dead pan and almost disinterested. He is both nothing like and very similar to Leonard Cohen in that way. On slower numbers his singing slightly behind the beat is also similar in ways to Willie Nelson's approach.
Virgins and Philistines was released in 1985 and I bought it after being given a copy of the eponymous single by the folks that owned The Everyman in Nelson. They would occasionally give me records in the hope that it would prompt bigger purchases - and it worked.
This is now the Terry Hall album I return to the most. Its simplicity means that, along with The Specials' first album I think it has aged best of all his albums. One of Hall's best lyrical abilities is to be able to in some nice, and frequently droll couplets, sum up some complex human emotions and situations.
" I guess I kind of should have knew
I should be thinking of you
But a friendship's built on trust
and that is something that you never do"
From Thinking of You
I finally managed to see Terry Hall with the Specials about 3 years ago in Singapore - good show but I have to admit that You Dun too Much Much Too Young sung by a 50 year old has a completely different vibe to when it was sung by a 19 year old.
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