With the departure of more than half of the group, Jerry Dammers, Horace 'Gentleman' Panter and John Bradbury, were left with the dilema of how to keep the group alive. After a short trip to Germany to back Rico, the three remaining Specials returned to the UK to sort matters out. Because of legal red tape, they could no longer use the name the Specials, so reverted to the old Special A.K.A. moniker.
The first project was to record a single with Rhoda Dakar, 'The Boiler', which Jerry had first attempted early in 1981. The song was an old Bodysnatchers number, a harrowing tale of rape, and despite a great production, it was never going to feature on too many radio play lists. The single was released in January 1982, and credited to Rhoda With The Special A.K.A. Horace didn't actually play on the record, his place being filled by ex- Bodysnatcher Nicky Summer, and a new guitarist, John Shipley was also present.
The record got a lot of attention, if not airplay, due to the sensitive subject matter, and evetually reached a very credible No.35 on the chart. A follow up single 'Female Chauvinist Pig' was planned but never emerged. Instead the next single to feature the band was 'Jungle Music', by Rico And The Special A.K.A. A catchy number that despite some good airplay failed to chart. Jerry, Brad and Horace also contributed to Rico's second album for 2-Tone, 'Jama', released in May '82.
Dammers tried to rebuild his 2-Tone empire by signing two new bands, first the Apollonaires, and then the Higsons. Both bands had leanings toward jazz funk, and it came as no surprise when the 4 singles that the bands issued all flopped. A new look Special A.K.A. soon appeared. Dammers had recruited Stan Campbell, and a friend of Rhoda's Egidio Newton, to provide vocals, and Gary McManus joined shortly after to replace Horace Panter, who had decided to call it a day.
The band released a new single 'War Crimes' in a flurry of publicity, but like 'The Boiler' previously, the subject of the song prevented it from getting the airplay it deserved. 'War Crimes' became the first single by the Specials not to gain any chart placing. Dammers however, was happy to sacrifice commercial success to get his message across.
The next move was to take the band into the studio to record a new album. It was a long hard process, and the first that the public got to hear of their labours was 8 months later, in August 1983, when the single 'Rascist Friend/Bright Lights' was released. The single found Roddy Radiation making a guest appearance on guitar, and took the band to the lower reaches of the chart, with a No.60 chart placing.
The inspiration for 'Racist Friend' came from Jerry's observation that the more famous he got, the more friends he accumulated. He found he was seeing less and less of his family and real friends, and spending more time with the hangers on. One day he took out his address book, and as a starting point to decide who to get rid of, he scribbled out the name of anyone with racist tendancies.
The other side of the single, 'Bright Lights' summed up Stan Campbell's attitude to the band perfectly. The lyric goes along the lines of moving to London and joining a band, with the naive belief that "the streets really must be paved with gold". Campbell joined the Special A.K.A. expecting immediate fame and fortune, after all he was working with the guy who started 2-Tone. When this success was not forthcoming, Campbell became very irritable, threatening to quit on an almost daily basis.
To make the recording of the album even more stressful, some members of the band lived in Coventry, while some still lived in London. Just getting the group together was a nightmare. Rhoda also has unhappy memories of the recording: "My memories are of going home in tears after singing one line of a lyric over and over for about five hours. I went home sobbing in a cab most nights." With the recording costs beginning to rise at an alarming rate, Chrysalis tried to recoup some of the cash by issuing the compilation album 'This Are Two Tone'.
The next thing to emerge from the studio was the classic 'Free Nelson Mandela' single in March 1984. The recording, produced by Elvis Costello, also featured Lynval Golding, now a free agent after the Fun Boy 3 split, and Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling, formely of the Beat. The single brought the plight of the ANC member to the attention of many for the first time. If 'Ghost Town' was Dammers greatest commercial success, 'Free Nelson Mandela' was his greatest artistic achievment, although he rarely gets the credit for it he deserves. The record shot to No.9 on the chart, and Jerry was soon busy organising the Artists Against Apartheid' concert on Clapham Common. The Special A.K.A. did not appear on the bill, possibly because that Stan campbell had finally quit the band shortly before the release of the new single.
After two long, hard years in the making, the Special A.K.A.s 'In The Studio' album was finally unveiled in August 1984. Although it was a fine album, half of the tracks were already available on single issue, and another, 'What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend', was released in September. Of the new tracks, the standout was probably the smokey jazz of 'Alcohol', which featured a big fat brass section and seductive vocal from Rhoda.
The new single '...Girlfriend' actually featured Jerry on lead vocals, and the video was a classic, with Dammers playing the part of an alien who comes to Earth and takes an instant attraction to some blokes girl in a bar. The single, which struggled to No.51, was to be the last from the 'original' Specials camp. 'In The Studio' proved a financial disaster for Chrysalis, and the last that anyone saw of the Special A.K.A. was on Channel 4's Play At Home series, where the band made a video for each of the tracks from the album.
Another single, 'You Can't Take Love Seriously', was planned but eventually Chrysalis refused to fund the project. To make matters worse , Dammers was under contract to provide a further 3 albums, but the budget was gone. Jerry was caught in a contractual limbo that eventually strangled his career. Chrysalis cashed in on the 2-Tone phenomenon over the next 10 years by releasing a selection of compilations, and recentley a couple of budget priced Specials collections were also issued. These albums are a disgrace as members of the band receive absolutely no royalties from them. Dammers urges people to stick to the Specials official albums, and avoid the cheaply priced ones.
It seemed as if the Specials would never be heard of again, but when ska started to take off in America in the late '80's, John Bradbury decided to put together a touring band made up of members of the Specials and the Beat. Terry Hall and Jerry Dammers had left ska behind long ago, and so were obviously not approached for the project, but Neville Staples, Lynval Golding and Horace Panter did join up, although Roddy Radiation declined. The band toured America and Japan, and also released a couple of live albums before splitting.
The next Specials re-union occurred in 1993, when Roddy, Neville, Lynval and Horace teamed up to record an album with Jamaican legend Desmond Dekker. The album, 'King Of Kings', featured cover versions of Jamaican standards and was credited to Desmond Dekker And The Specials. Although the album was widely panned, the foursome decided to go on the road as the Specials, and evetually signed a deal with Ali Campbell's Kuff label. An album, 'Today's Specials' and two singles, 'Pressure Drop' and 'Hypocrite', were issued before the band signed with MCA.
The second album 'Guilty 'Til Proved Innocent' was much better received by the press, and the band continue to play live under the Specials name. A full re-union of all original members will probably never happen, Terry Hall has said that he will never go back, despite, or maybe because of, his love for the band.
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