The Specials - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-26-2009

I hadn't planned on posting this, because I prefer music from artists when they were in their prime, and this concert took place long after the Specials had their prime in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, I made an exception here because the band reunited in 1993 and stayed together after that, but it wasn't until some months before this concert that Terry Hall, the band's original lead singer until 1981, rejoined the band. So this was an important reunion of sorts. Hall was the singer on the original versions of most or all of these songs.

Another reason I posted this is because the bootleg recording of this show sounded excellent in general, but had one big flaw that I could fix: the lead vocals were way too low in the mix. I used the UVR5 audio editing program to bring up the vocals. It sounds much better now.

Virtually all of the songs here were originally done in the 1979 to 1981 time frame. The band continued until about 1986 without Hall (as "Specials AKA"), and had some hits, including "Free Nelson Mandela," but I guess Hall didn't feel comfortable doing those.

The album is 59 minutes long.

01 talk (Specials)
02 Do the Dog (Specials)
03 Gangsters (Specials)
04 It's Up to You (Specials)
05 Rat Race (Specials)
06 Monkey Man (Specials)
07 talk (Specials)
08 Blank Expression (Specials)
09 Too Hot (Specials)
10 Doesn't Make It Alright (Specials)
11 talk (Specials)
12 Concrete Jungle (Specials)
13 Friday Night, Saturday Morning (Specials)
14 Man at C&A (Specials)
15 A Message to You, Rudy (Specials)
16 talk (Specials)
17 Do Nothing (Specials)
18 Hey Little Rich Girl (Specials)
19 Nite Klub (Specials)
20 Too Much, Too Young (Specials)
21 You're Wondering Now (Specials)
22 Ghost Town (Specials)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16604043/TSPECLS2009BBSssonsVlum4GlstnbrFstivlWrthyFrmPiltnBitin__6-26-2009_atse.zip.html

The photo of lead singer Terry Hall is from this exact concert. I couldn't find any good photos showing the entire band.

Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 12-26-1979 to 12-29-1979: Day 3: The Pretenders, the Specials & the Who

Here's Part Three of the four-part Concerts for the People of Kampuchea. It has the highlights from the third night. Just like Part Two, there were three big music acts. This time, it was the Pretenders, the Specials, and the Who.

If you want to know more about these concerts in general, check out my write-up for Part One. The track numbering here begins with track 47 in case you want to put all four parts in one folder. If you do, you'll have a mega-concert nearly five hours long.

As I mentioned previously, there was an official double album released of these concerts, but it is long out of print. Three songs by the Pretenders, one song by the Specials, and four songs by the Who come from that. In addition, a bootleg of outtakes from the official album was made public eventually. The rest of the Pretenders and Specials songs come from that, as well as some of the Who songs. 

But on top of all that, I found a bootleg of the entire set by the Who. However, I've only included some of the songs from that, for a couple of reasons. One reason is that while the sound quality is very good, it's not quite as good as the songs from the other sources. 

The other reason is that it was an off night for the Who. Lead guitarist (and occasional lead singer) Pete Townshend was going through a phase where he was going overboard with drugs and especially alcohol. It was very obvious to concert goers that he was very drunk during this concert. He danced around much more than usual, but sometimes flubbed his guitar or vocal parts. He also gave a kind of political speech during the "Dancing in the Street - Dance It Away" medley. It was meant to support the goals of the benefit concert, but it was done in a sarcastic style that could have been easily misunderstood.

Because of all that, I tried to only pick the Who songs that sounded the best and didn't have obvious flubs. 

I would have liked to have more songs by the Pretenders and the Specials, but I think there's just enough for both acts to put up a good showing. But for all three acts, there were many more songs played that what's included here. I'm sure about the song order for the Who set, but the songs might be a bit mixed up for the other two acts, I'm not sure. Also, I'm guessing some of the banter between songs is missing. But since I've heard the full Who set, I know there was no banter before the starts of any of their songs.

This album is an hour and 33 minutes long.

47 The Wait (Pretenders)
48 Precious (Pretenders)
49 Tattooed Love Boys (Pretenders)
50 Brass in Pocket (Pretenders)
51 Private Life (Pretenders)
52 Monkey Man (Specials)
53 talk (Specials)
54 It Doesn't Make It Alright (Specials)
55 Stupid Marriage (Specials)
56 talk (Specials)
57 Too Much, Too Young (Specials)
58 Baba O'Riley (Who)
59 Sister Disco (Who)
60 Behind Blue Eyes (Who)
61 Who Are You (Who)
62 See Me, Feel Me (Who)
63 I Can See for Miles (Who)
64 Won't Get Fooled Again (Who)
65 Summertime Blues (Who)
66 Dancing in the Street - Dance It Away (Who)
67 The Real Me (Who)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mqTe6o6o

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mlzNvPL6h789zg0/file

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DZ7ETVr3I2XqGoN/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Pete Townshend is closest to the camera. Roger Daltrey is in the middle ground, and John Entwistle is farthest away. I sharpened the picture using Krea AI, and made some additional changes in Photoshop.

The Specials - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1980-1984

This is the third and last of BBC sessions albums for the Specials.

The Specials in their late 1970s/early 1980s prime had two distinct phases. The change happened around 1981 with some big personnel changes. Most importantly, lead singer Terry Hall left with two others to form the band Fun Boy Three. But crucially, the main songwriter Jerry Dammers remained. The change was so significant that the band was renamed "Special A.K.A." But I prefer to still call them "the Specials" for simplicity's sake.

Anyway, after this change, the band hardly did any live appearances. One big problem was that Dammers wasn't much of a singer. So there tended to be guest singers, including some women, which was new for the band. The original line-up is still here on the first six songs, with Hall as lead singer.  

Six of the songs here are officially released, from the album "BBC Sessions" (tracks 3 through 5 and 7 through 9).  Those also are all proper BBC studio sessions. I've augmented them with songs from British TV shows. The first two songs and the seventh are from BBC shows. "Why" actually is an unreleased studio outtake. But I thought it was worth including, especially due to the lack of alternate versions of such songs from later in the band's career.

The last song, "Free Nelson Mandela," is particularly interesting. First of all, it's a classic song that had a powerful political effect. But what's interesting about this version is that it was actually performed with Elvis Costello, plus Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger from the English Beat. That was not the case on the studio version. If you listen carefully, Costello sings most of the lead vocals.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Do Nothing (Specials)
02 Man at C&A (Specials)
03 Sea Cruise (Specials)
04 Stereotype (Specials)
05 Racquel (Specials)
06 Why [Alternate Version] (Specials)
07 The Boiler (Specials)
08 Alcohol (Specials)
09 Lonely Crowd (Specials)
10 Bright Lights (Specials)
11 Free Nelson Mandela (Specials with Elvis Costello, Dave Wakeling & Ranking Roger)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376812/TSPECLS1980-1984BBSssonsVol3_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from 1981, before the personnel changes mentioned above.

The Specials - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 12-15-1979

A while back, I posted Volume 1 of the Specials performing for the BBC. That consisted entirely of BBC studio sessions from 1979 and 1980. This consists of many of the same songs, except this time they're from a live concert broadcast by the BBC. If you want a live album of the band when they were doing their early, energetic ska stuff, this has both top notch sound quality and performance.

There's not much else to say, so I'll keep it short. I do have a Volume 3 coming, that deals with more studio sessions from 1981 to 1984.

The one bummer about this is that it's rather short, at only 34 minutes. But I believe it's the full show, as that was all the time the BBC gave them, and there were other acts on the bill.

01 [Dawning of a] New Era (Specials)
02 Do the Dog (Specials)
03 Rat Race (Specials)
04 Blank Expression (Specials)
05 Rude Boys Outa Jail (Specials)
06 Concrete Jungle (Specials)
07 Too Much Too Young (Specials)
08 Guns of Navarone (Specials)
09 Nite Klub (Specials)
10 Gangsters (Specials)
11 Long Shot Kick de Bucket - Skinhead Moonstomp (Specials)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376806/TSPECLS1979cBBSssonsVol2InCncrtPrisTheatreLndnBritin__12-15-1979_atse.zip.html

The cover photo obviously shows the Specials being filmed for some TV performance, but I don't know the details.

The Specials - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1979-1980

Currently, I'm focusing on posting BBC sessions from the 1960s into the early 1970s. That's because those were the years when BBC DJs tended to talk over the music, and I can remove the talking for those who prefer to hear the music without it. Happily, that talking lessened starting around 1970, and pretty much petered out around 1972. 

But that doesn't mean interesting BBC sessions stopped then. I think there are a lot fewer studio BBC sessions since the early 1970s, because the BBC started recording full or partial concerts and playing them on the radio. But the BBC sessions tradition continues until today. I'll be getting to a lot more of those later, but for now here's one.

I've already posted a couple of stray tracks albums by the Specials. Happily, they did a fair number of BBC recordings for the duration of their short career (not including later reunions). I actually have enough for three albums. There's this one and another one made up of studio sessions, and another one of a 1979 concert broadcast.

Ten of the 15 songs here come from proper BBC studio sessions that have been included on the official album "BBC Sessions." However, some of their key songs from this time period weren't included in those. So I went looking around for other TV or radio sessions, and found five more songs, which make up tracks five through nine. All of those are unreleased. Three of them actually are BBC recordings too, but are from TV shows instead of radio shows. The other two are from the 1979 Concert for Kampuchea benefit concert. There's a soundboard quality bootleg of that show, so I used that to fill in the remaining gaps.

01 Gangsters (Specials)
02 Too Much Too Young (Specials)
03 Concrete Jungle (Specials)
04 Monkey Man (Specials)
05 A Message to You, Rudy (Specials)
06 It's Up to You (Specials)
07 It Doesn't Make It Alright (Specials)
08 Stupid Marriage (Specials)
09 Madness (Specials)
10 Blank Expression (Specials)
11 You're Wondering Now (Specials)
12 Friday Night, Saturday Morning (Specials)
13 Rude Boys Outa Jail (Specials)
14 Rat Race (Specials)
15 Long Shot Kick de Bucket - The Liquidator - Skinhead Moonstomp (Specials)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376813/TSPECLS1979b-1980BBSssonsVol1_atse.zip.html

For the cover, I used a publicity photo taken in 1979.

The Specials - Ghost Town - Non-Album Tracks (1981-1985)

Here's the second and final stray tracks album for the Specials. 

Note that the band basically split into two in 1981. Lead singer Terry Hall and a couple others left to form the band Fun Boy Three, while the main songwriter Jerry Dammers continued with the somewhat different name the Special AKA. For simplicity's sake, I call everything "the Specials." In actual fact, only the first four songs feature Hall and the rest of the original band.

The first song, "Ghost Town," was a number one hit in Britain, and all three major British music magazines of the time named it the song of the year. However, it didn't make much impact in the US, since it was specifically speaking about the economic troubles in Britain at the time.

Most of the rest of the songs are B-sides. "96 Tears" is an unreleased demo of the classic 1960s hit, from right before the band broke up. "Jungle Music" is an A-side, but it didn't chart at all. The last song, "Starvation," is a special case. 1985 was the year of the huge "Live Aid" benefit concert, and the massive hit charity single "We Are the World." A bunch of band in the British ska/reggae movement, led by the Dammers version of the Specials, decided to do their own charity single to benefit the same problem of famine in Africa. It's a cover of a song originally done by the Pioneers in 1971.

Personally, I think Dammers wrote some top notch songs for the Specials. But after 1984 or thereabouts, he more or less stopped putting out music and mostly switched to other pursuits, such as DJing, instead. That's a shame, in my opinion. Starting in 1993, various versions of the Specials reformed. Terry Hall rejoined the band in 2008, and has led it ever since. Dammers never rejoined though. But these later versions of the band are basically an oldies act, in my opinion, focusing on concerts filled with their 1970s and early 1980s songs, so this series ends here.

Now, I have to address the very unusual bonus track, "The Boiler." I have to warn you that this song, written by Dammers and several women from a short-lived band called the Bodysnatchers, is very hard to listen to. It starts off sounding like most any other catchy, toe-tapping Specials song, with lead vocals by female vocalist Rhoda Dakar. But as the song goes on, Dakar describes a date that goes horribly wrong. It ends with her getting raped, which is expressed in audio by her screaming in horror. It is one of the most disturbing songs I've ever heard.

Dammers has said it's a song that's only meant to be heard once, in order to get its message across. Thus, I've only included it as a bonus track, an optional kind of thing, because it would stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of the rest of the songs, well-intentioned though it is. Also, note that the B-side, "Theme from the Boiler," is basically the same song, but just an instrumental version. I have included that as one of the album tracks. 

So you might want to take Dammers' advice and listen to "The Boiler" once. But I doubt there are many who would want to hear it lots of times.

01 Ghost Town (Specials)
02 Why (Specials)
03 Friday Night, Saturday Morning (Specials)
04 96 Tears [Demo] (Specials)
05 Theme from the Boiler [Instrumental] (Specials)
06 Jungle Music (Specials with Rico)
07 Rasta Call You [Instrumental] (Specials with Rico)
08 Easter Island [Instrumental] (Specials with Rico)
09 Can't Get a Break (Specials)
10 Starvation (Specials, Pioneers, UB40, Madness, & General Public)

The Boiler (Specials featuring Rhoda)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376815/TSPECLS1981-1985GhstTwn_atse.zip.html

The album cover is the cover of the "Ghost Town" single. The only change I made is that the original cover included the names of the two B-sides as well. I removed those names, and increased the size of A-side name to cover the empty space.

The Specials - Gangsters - Non-Album Tracks (1978-1980)

I'm a big fan of the Specials. Like the English Beat whom I posted about yesterday, they didn't stay together very long, but pretty much all their music is top notch. They only released three albums (if you count the Special AKA as the Specials, and I do). However, I was able to find two albums' worth of stray tracks. Here's the first such album.

The first four songs are technically by the Coventry Automatics. But that was an early name of the Specials, and included key members Terry Hall and Jerry Dammers, though two other members hadn't joined yet. So I'm crediting those to the Specials for simplicity's sake. 

All but two songs here have been officially released, but some have come out in rather obscure ways. The first four songs mentioned above were included on an archival release. Five more songs were from singles or an EP, including the hit single "Gangsters," which went to the Top Ten in Britain. Two more are from BBC sessions ( the "Long Shot Kick de Bucket - The Liquidator - Skinhead Moonstomp" medley and "Sea Cruise"). By the way, I plan on posting some Specials BBC sessions albums here eventually, but I think those two songs deserve to be included here, as well on those albums. The medley also appeared on a 1980 EP, but that was a live version, and I think the BBC version, effectively a studio version, sounds better.

Speaking of sound quality, the two unreleased songs, "Man from Wareika" and "Madness," are from a live bootleg. They sound good, but not as good as everything else on this album. By the way, "Man from Wareika" first appeared on a 1977 album by Rico Rodriguez. He'd already had a long musical career since the 1950s as a trombonist before joining the Specials when that group formed. He also released a solo version of "Sea Cruise" in 1980. So that explains why the Specials did those songs.

I wasn't sure what to do with the song "Rat Race." It was a hit single in 1979, then it was included on the 1980 album "More Specials," but only the US version. I poked around, and it seems the British version still doesn't include the song. So US Specials fans are very likely to have this song on album already, and British fans are not. Thus, I've included it as a bonus track only. So keep it or not, depending on your situation.

This album is 45 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Wake Up [Instrumental] (Specials)
02 Rock and Rock Nightmare (Specials)
03 Look but Don't Touch (Specials)
04 Jay Walker (Specials)
05 Gangsters (Specials)
06 Guns of Navarone (Specials)
07 Man from Wareika [Instrumental] (Specials)
08 Madness (Specials)
09 Maggie's Farm (Specials)
10 Rude Boys Outta Jail (Specials)
11 Racquel (Specials)
12 Braggin' and Tryin' Not to Lie (Specials with Roddy Radiation)
13 Long Shot Kick de Bucket - The Liquidator - Skinhead Moonstomp (Specials)
14 Sea Cruise (Specials)

Rat Race (Specials)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701085/TSPECILS1978-1980_Gngstrs_atse.zip.html

The cover art uses a publicity photo taken in New York City in 1980. I added the record company logo, since it usually featured on the band's releases.