Author Daniel Rachel on his history of 2 Tone Records

“We were already wearing black and white because that was kind of the uniform. Suddenly that was also the uniform of Walt Jabsco (the figure in the 2 Tone logo). By covering over the school badge with his image and badges of The Beat and The Selecter and The Specials and putting on white socks, which was against school regulations, we became rude boys and rude girls.

“It was massive, and I got got deeply affected by the music, the look and the lyricism really early on – particularly the lyricism. I realised as I grew older that it was an education – but an education that a school curriculum would never provide.”

Rachel’s book is not the first to be written on 2 Tone but in managing to interview so many of the main protagonists including Jerry Dammers of The Specials, Pauline Black of The Selecter, Suggs of Madness, Rhoda Dakar of The Bodysnatchers, and Dave Wakeling of The Beat, he was able to provide the most detailed picture of all the bands involved.

The author says: “There has been a lot of literature on 2 Tone, and there’s nothing better than reading it from the protagonists, but Pauline Black’s book is as much about discovering who she is as it is the story of The Selecter, and Horace Panter’s book had the beauty of diaries from the time, but what was lacking was the rounded story.

“(Too Much Too Young) brings all of the leading protagonists together, and by being one step removed or beyond, it enabled an element of the story that is necessary but more difficult for people to either want to tell or understand, and that’s either in how the groups collapsed in on themselves, but also the audience experience directly in the auditoriums and outside.

“The more I looked into it and researched it, the more I realised that these parts of the story hadn’t been told in literature before.”

Like Detroit, where Motown flourished, Coventry had been a car-making city that was starting to fall on hard times by the late 1970s. Rachel notes that “strangely it became a magnet for musicians – partly that was because they were going to university at Lanchester, but there also was a music scene and I think that pulled in people from different counties, (towns like) Rugby, Luton and Gloucester, and that was definitely a major part of The Selecter and The Specials”.

“But at the same time talking to Jerry Dammers,” he adds, “he had more of a frustration with Coventry and ultimately went in search of musicians in Birmingham, where he went to further his record collection. But then the surprise was that out of Birmingham came The Beat, who were delving and exploring into similar musical backgrounds, genres and clothing that The Specials and The Selecter were doing, and then when those bands came to London, there was Madness dressing the same and again delving into ska records and Jamaican (artists such as) Prince Buster, completely oblivious to The Beat and what The Specials were doing. I think that’s remarkable. Whereas The Bodysnatchers and The Selecter formed because of The Specials and are mirrors of that band.”

At the heart of the story is Dammers, whose vision helped define 2 Tone. The son of a clergyman, who’d rebelled at public school, he had studied art and filmmaking at Lanchester Polytechnic and then became obsessed with music.

“Jerry had an extraordinary vision that was born out of being a very young Mod – he calls himself a mini Mod, a fan of The Who and Small Faces and the British Beat explosion in the 60s – and I think from that moment on he nursed a musical vision with an artistic bent for drawing, painting and filmmaking which he did at Lanchester,” Rachel says.

“Then as that coalesced with the various movements that were oming into British culture in the 70s – the revival of skinhead and Mod – he saw a way of combining all of those elements into this concept of 2 Tone, which would be a visual movement. It’s really extraordinary that he wanted to be a pop star, he wanted his band The Specials to be successful, but he never thought they would be mainstream successful. He wanted to form a record label that would operate outside of the mainstream record industry, and he wanted to do it not just for himself and the other six members of the band, but with a strength in numbers.

“He wanted to find likeminded bands that would act as this conveyor belt of music. Like Detroit was the home of the Motor City and Coventry was the home of the motor car in Britain​​​​​​​, he wanted to make the same idea of 2 Tone, but instead of an identifiable car there would be an identifiable sound, and 2 Tone certainly delivered that. But those bands – Madness, The Bodysnatchers, The Beat and The Selecter​​​​​​​ – the idea was that they would sign to 2 Tone to do​​​​​​​ one song and then that would be a launchpad to do whatever they wanted in their careers, and so they did.”

Too Much Too Young: The 2 Tone Records Story is published by White Rabbit, priced £25. https://danielrachel.com/