When the Ramones played their first British show, on July 4, 1976,
it was exactly what a generation of pissed-off youths—facing
racial tensions and skyrocketing unemployment—was looking
for.
But three years later, things had cooled off a bit. The mostly white
punks and the mostly black reggae fans realized, as they found
themselves in the same unemployment lines, that they might have more in
common than they initially realized: They were all just poor kids
looking for jobs and a better life. If there was no panacea, there was
at least escape through, among other things, music.
It was in this climate that the punks and reggae fans of the
Midlands area of England started gathering together at house
parties—”punky reggae parties”—in which there was a DJ in
one corner of the room spinning dub reggae 12-inches, and another in
the opposite corner playing the punk singles of the day.
Dave Wakeling explains, “If we played all punk singles, the floor
would be crowded and crazy for about an hour, and then everybody would
disappear. And if you played all reggae, you’d end up with everybody
lined up, leaning against the wall, nodding. So if you had one of that,
one of this, two of this, two of the other, we found it was the most
fantastic blend, and the dance floor stayed packed. The energy from the
punk lifted them up, and the sensuality and the groove of the reggae
settled ’em down.”
Many of the kids who attended those parties soaked it all in and
ended up forming a handful of bands that blended it all
together—bands like the Specials, Madness, the Selecter, Bad
Manners, and the Beat. They emerged with a new sound that would be
called 2 Tone.
The 2 Tone bands combined reggae and ska, punk and soul; added
lyrics that often addressed the issues of the day; and placed an
emphasis on inclusion. “It was a perfect storm of conditions and
climates, really,” recalls Wakeling, who sang lead vocals for the
Beat—or, as they were known in America, the English Beat.
“Because punk had just destroyed so many rules and regulations, you
found yourself in the vacuum that followed, with quite a lot of
relative freedom. And so you could get dance-y tunes together, and pair
them up with what you might call more social (awareness)—so long
as it was catchy, no one seemed to notice.”
Not only was the English Beat catchy; it was arguably the smoothest
of all the 2 Tone bands, a trait largely attributed to Wakeling’s
soulful croon of a voice, which he says came from a love of Motown.
Wakeling’s voice was offset perfectly by fellow vocalist Ranking Roger,
who, when he wasn’t taking lead vocals on a particular song, served as
the equivalent of the hype-man in hip-hop.
The original Beat lasted only four years, releasing three excellent
albums: 1980’s I Just Can’t Stop It; Wha’ppen? from 1981;
and 1982’s Special Beat Service, all on I.R.S. Records.
They were instant superstars in the United Kingdom, but, like most
bands pushing boundaries at the time, managed to become only college
darlings in America. I.R.S. promoted them as such, placing them on
tours with slightly more popular fellow-undergrounders like Talking
Heads, the Clash, and the Police. After touring to promote Special
Beat Service, two of the band’s members, guitarist Andy Cox and
bassist David Steele, wanted time off—something the other members
didn’t.
The English Beat broke up soon thereafter, with Wakeling and Roger
immediately forming General Public, which scored a pair of hits,
“Tenderness” and a cover of “I’ll Take You There,” in the United
States. After taking a couple of years off, Cox and Steele emerged with
a new band, Fine Young Cannibals, who hit it big with a couple of
singles, most notably “She Drives Me Crazy.”
After two albums with General Public, Wakeling left to pursue a
lifelong dream of working for Greenpeace. A General Public reunion
album came later, and eventually, Wakeling, who has lived in California
for the last 23 years, started playing in a succession of bands in the
States. Eventually, one of those bands morphed into an all-new version
of the English Beat. (At one point, VH1’s Bands Reunited series
attempted to reunite all of the band’s original members, but Cox and
Steele wouldn’t participate.)
The English Beat may have become a beloved footnote in the history
of college music if a funny thing hadn’t happened in the United States
in the ’90s: An entirely new generation of kids became enamored with
the 2 Tone sound and started forming bands of their own. “Third-wave”
ska bands such as No Doubt and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones started
mentioning that the English Beat had influenced them, and fans of those
bands began taking interest.
But Wakeling is quick to point out that, just as the 2 Tone bands
weren’t merely mimicking early Jamaican ska bands, similarly, the
third-wave bands weren’t just mimicking the 2 Tone bands.
“I suppose like any blended wine that’s got different grapes in it,
it’s got its certain percentages,” he says. “So the percentage of punk,
soul, reggae and ska in 2 Tone was slightly different, I think, from
the blend that the third-wave years later, here in America, came up
with, which (tended) to add yet another dose of punk to it, so it got
faster again.”
In the mid ’90s, one of the third-wave bands, Reel Big Fish, invited
Wakeling to perform at their first album-release party. He obliged, and
they’ve remained friends, leading to the current tour.
And following in that tradition of evolving the sound, Wakeling says
the new Beat isn’t quite the same as the old Beat.
“In the same way as when we started in 1979, I didn’t want us to
sound like we were from Kingston, Jamaica, in 1963; and now I don’t
want to sound like I’m from the Midlands of England in 1979, you know,”
Wakeling explains. “There are three Englishmen and four Americans in
the band, and most everybody lives in California … and so I’m happy
to have a kind of Amer-reggae flavor on it, which is like reggae but
with an extra dose of soul in the drums. This is my new cause—the
establishment and development of Amer-reggae.”
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2009.
