The Specials are the first group I’ve followed from first gig to international stardom. Nobody else realizes this, but their first ever press mention was, in fact, in CREEM. It was in a Letter From Britain in late 1977. I was trying to describe the exhilarating punk transformation of Coventry’s provincial routines. The best of the new groups was called the Automatics and their singer, Tim, became a friend. In those days he wanted to look like Iggy but could never remember the words. The Automatics made dance music out of punk and reggae in Ways that Elvis Costello and the Clpsh hadn’t thought about. They had a black drummer, Silverton, a choppy reggae guitarist, Lynval, a pale, stunning bass player, Sir Horace Gentleman,, and Jerry Dammers on keyboards. That night he couldn’t get his organ onstage and stood in the audience, facing his band like a conductor.

The track I remember most clearly from that performance was “(Dawning of a) New Era,” Jerry’s punk celebration of the moment, a bohemian strut through the decaying 70’s. And then, as the gig came to an end, a heartlifting surprise: a speedy version of “The Liquidator,” a pop-ska hit instrumental from 1969, and a sudden rush of memories—skinheads, Yorkshire dance floors, Saturday afternoons in Leeds town centre. Jerry’s organ was swirling with excitement.

The Automatics were, indeed, ihe most exciting live band’there was, and everyone in Coventry was agreed on it. Not enough: it still took two scuffling years for the message from these rudies to be heard by anyone else. A&R men would occasionally appear at the Automatics’ Coventry gigs, only to shrug and go away; hustlers sometimes arrived to take care of business, but they never did. A London band claimed title to the Automatics’ name and they had to change it—first, briefly, to the Jaywalkers, and then to the Specials.

Tim left in the early days. There were musical and personal differences: his casual arrogance didn’t fit. Terry Hall came in, recruited from Squad, the most vulgar of the local punk bands, though he himself wore make-up and a black beret that slid halfway down the side of his face. If Tim had looked like an extra from Lou Reed’s Berlin, Terry looked like a character out of Christopher Isherwood—nervy, intense, absent-mindedly disturbing. He sang in the punk style of detached anger, and alter two years of added power has become a very good singer indeed.

As the Automatics became the Specials, their sound got fuller—less spikey, more solid. Roddy Radiation came in, a cheerfully hard punk from another local band, the Wild Boys, to add an intelligently flashy lead guitar. Neville, the roadie, began singing too, adding frenzied commentaries to Terry’s words like a dub DJ. And the band kept playing. They played a residency at Mr. George’s, and an odd gig in London. They wept to Paris. They toured with the Clash. They got better, harder, surer.

And nothing happened. By late 1978 the punk promise was mostly blown. Things were being done the industry way again and the Specials hadn’t even made a record. People began to mutter that they’d blown it too. I got a call from Jerry one day: they were going to squat an empty building in the city center, take it over as a rehearsal room, make a lot of noise. Could I come down? If there was trouble, they wanted it reported. I went down and there was no trouble at all, S just a roomful of cold musicians grumbling a little and working through the familiar songs. I got bored and wondered how much longer they’d go on with this. Silverton, the drummer, must have been wondering the same thing. 1978 became 1979 and he drifted away—too many cold days and wasted nights. For once, his timing was wrong. As he left the band went, at last, into a studio. For the session they recruited the heaviest local reggae drummer, Brad, from behind the counter at Virgin Records. He’s been a Special ever since.

“Gangsters,” the Specials’ first single, came out in May. The group still had no manager and no money, they were still having hassles with the recording studio. And then they found an investor, “a gambling man,” as they, now put it, delicately. There were local rumors about Midland battalions, the black drug scene, clubland gangsters, but the Specials’ godfather seems to have taken his 15 percent interest and bowed out, graciously enough. The band is grateful to him still.

“Gangsters” itself was an . eccentric reworking of an old Prince Buster song. On first hearing it sounded shambolic; on all subsequent hearings it sounded remarkable, solidly, skillfully, captivating. On the B side was an old instrumental track of Brad’s, working with Neol Davies, a local guitarist. They played under the name of the Selecter. The record Was on the Specials’ own label, 2-Tone: the initial pressing was 2,500, and I didn’t expect the record to be a hit.

They weren’t being reported the way they were— a hard driving dance band, no categories.

Three things changed the Specials’ lives. Firstly, they got a manager. They initially went to see Rick Rogers at Trigger, a PR company, because they wanted publicity for their record. But he liked the band enough to take charge of all their affairs, and his great advantage over previous would-be managers was, precisely, his lack of “professionalism.” Previous managers had seen their task as to make the Specials commercially successful, which meant fitting them into established ways of doing things. Rogers defines his task as doing efficiently whatever the band asks, however odd their requests may seem. Their relationship (given Jerry’s awkwardness) has been an excellent one. “Rick,” says Jerry with awe, “hasn’t even asked for his money yet. ”

The first managerial task was, in fact, straightforward. Rick Rogers had to get the Specials some gigs. Since their unhappy dealings with Bernie Rhodes, ex-manager of the Clash, the group has hardly played at all. Now, by contrast, the Specials played what seemed like every small venue in London. They became an insistent buzz. The rock press (which rarely moved outside the capitol) discovered what we had known

all along, that a Specials night out was a special night out. And on their own turf the A&R men didn’t shrug, but pushed each other at the bar and started conspiring in comers.

At the end of 1979 the Specials came back to Coventry like war heroes.

Secondly, while cult queues formed round the block at the capitol and Nashville, and Elvis Costello had to fight to get in, the Specials’ sound was reaching the provincial masses too. BBC DJ John Peel played “Gangsters” obsessively, and it became obvious, as we listened to it on the radio, night after night, that the record was a hit.

Thirdly, the Specials came to the London clubs at the same time as the new Mods and Skins. The group’s ska-based sound—West Indian beat from the 60’s—became, more by accident than design, the sound of the rude-boy revival. Fans started showing up at Specials gigs in pork-pie hats and white socks; the band members themselves lost their new wave quirks and looked rude onstage. They had a selling image and Coventrians^ old punk fans, not a Mod among them, looked on bemused as the Specials were hailed as leaders of a new movement. The group seemed in danger of being lost in the media blitz. When I went on holiday at the end of July I was worried that they would become just another news flash. They weren’t being reported the way they were—a hard driving dance band, no categories.

I shouldn’t have worried. By the time we got back in October the Specials had become a phenomenon. All over the country people were dancing to the 2-Tone beat; Coventry, so every other music paper report said, had become the center of the universe. “Gangsters” had been a huge summer hit, 250,000 sales and a silver disc for everyone. And that was just the start, because the Specials and Rick Rogers had done an unusual deal. They had signed with Chrysalis not for the most money but for the most control and, especially, for the most control of 2-Tone. Chrysalis signed the Specials and agreed to distribute 10 other singles which the Specials, as 2-Tone, would give them. The first 2-Tone/Chrysalis single was “Gangsters” itself, but the next was “The Prince,” a tribute to Prince Buster by Madness, a cockney-ska showband. It was also a top ten hit. Next came “On My Radio,” by the Selecter, a band formed by Neol Davies and musicians from Coventry’s reggae scene. It reached the top ten, soon followed by the fourth 2-Tone record, the Specials’ “A Message To You Rudy.” Next came “Tears of a Clown” by the Beat, a black and white band from Birmingham—a top ten hit.

Jerry’s ambition had been to make 2-Tone a label with a sound like Tamla Motown or Stax, so that people could trust the logo even if they’d never heard of the band. But even Motown hadn’t started so well, and meanwhile the Specials’ debut LP, produced by Elvis Costello, shot into the album charts, easily outselling the Boomtown Rats’ simultaneous rejease, and the Rats had been parsing themselves off as superstars for years. 2-Tone had a hit formula that no one could ignore. Madness were signed by Stiff and made more hits, a hugely selling LP; the Beat were signed by Arista with a vast advance. The 2-Tone tour sold out from north to south, and the Specials only had to mention that they liked a band for every other record company to like them too. Dexy’s Midnight Runners, a Birmingham soul tend, were snatched up by EMI before they could even get a 2-Tone record out. At the end of 1979 the Specials came back to Coventry like war heroes, sure and powerful. Rico, the legendary Jamaican trombonist whose ska style had been their inspiration, was now up there, onstage with them. Dreams had come true; it see med like a suitable gig for Christmas.

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Jerry still lives down the road from me, in a cluttered, comfortable flat, with his art school work on the walls, a postcard of Ken Dodds on the fireplace, and a board full of photos from the past. Old club soul groups posed in white vests and black muscles; Midlands rock fans with long hair glare earnestly at camera. Study the pictures hard and you can spot, maybe, Specials and Selectors in previous disguises.

Jerry was about to go to Europe and America; he has been playing around Britain since May. For the last week he had been closely watched by a BBC film crew. To suit the plot, he had even thrown a brick through the bathroom window and it was now too cold to piss. The day before I saw him he had bought a decent stereo system, his first, but every time he put it on, at rockstar volume, the phone rang. He reckoned it was time to retire. He hadn’t written a song for months, he’d forgotten where he’d left his organ, and he still couldn’t decide if he liked the final mix of the Specials’ live EF. But he laughed more than he sighed, and the rock treadmill, once on, is hard to get off. “Too Much Pressure,” the Selecter thing on the back of “On My Radio,” but the pressure of success is easier borne than the pressure of failure and the Specials can’t help getting more successful. I just wished I was traveling to America too. Make the best of the Specials while you can.