Terry Hall

Terry Hall

Terry Hall is a singer and songwriter from Coventry, United Kingdom, best known as the lead voice of several British ska and new wave groups, including The Specials, Fun Boy Three, The Colourfield, Terry, Blair and Anouchka, and Vegas. Born in 1959, he dies in 2022.

Early work in Coventry

Hall is part of the late 1970s Coventry music scene and plays in the local punk band Squad, where he is credited as a composer on the single “Red Alert” / “£8 a Week”. He also fronts The Specials when the group is first known as The Coventry Automatics. The scene also produces acts including The Selecter and Hazel O’Connor.

The Specials

Hall gains wider recognition with The Specials after BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel plays “Gangsters” in 1979, a track that also appears at number 7 in his Festive Fifty for that year. Hall sings on the band’s first self-titled album, including “Little Bitch”, “Nite Klub”, “Concrete Jungle” and “Gangsters”, and on More Specials in 1980, where he performs on songs such as “Enjoy Yourself”, “Rat Race” and “Hey, Little Rich Girl”. He does not appear on the band’s 1984 album In The Studio. After the UK number one single “Ghost Town”, he leaves the group.

Fun Boy Three and The Colourfield

After leaving The Specials, Hall forms Fun Boy Three with Lynval Golding and Neville Staples. The group’s early hits include “The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum)” and “It Ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It)”, a duet with Bananarama. Fun Boy Three also provide guest vocals on Bananarama’s “Really Saying Something” and appear in the video for Madness’s “Driving in My Car”. Their album Waiting appears in 1983 and includes the Top Ten singles “The Tunnel of Love” and “Our Lips Are Sealed”, the latter written by Hall with Jane Wiedlin. In 1984 he forms The Colourfield in Coventry, and the band’s 1985 album Virgins & Philistines includes the single “Thinking of You”, which reaches number 12 in the UK.

Solo work and collaborations

Hall releases his first solo album, Home, in 1995. He also works with The Lightning Seeds and their songwriter Ian Broudie, contributing songs to Sense, Jollification, Dizzy Heights and Tilt. He co-writes “Smoke Rings” for Broudie’s solo album Tales Told, and the track also appears as the lead song on the Smoke Rings EP. In 2001 he appears on the Gorillaz-D12 single “911”, and in 2007 he sings on many tracks on the Dub Pistols album Speakers and Tweeters. He also works with Stephen Duffy and Tricky.

Later activity and personal background

Hall returns to The Specials after the group reforms in 2008, singing on two further records. He is known as an artist who speaks openly about mental health, and he says that art therapy and medication help him after years of difficulty. He also says he begins self-medicating with alcohol in 2003 and had previously been wary of medication after being given Valium as a teenager.