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.