A Box of TERRY HALL [2022] (8 x CDs)

 

TERRY HALL (R.I.P)

A Box of TERRY HALL [2022] (8 x CDs)

Terence Edward Hall (19 March 1959 – 18 December 2022, from pancreatic cancer at age 63. R.I.P.) was a British musician who came to prominence as the lead singer of the 2-tone band the Specials, and later recorded with groups such as Fun Boy Three, the Colourfield, Terry, Blair & Anouchka, and Vegas.  He released two solo studio albums and also collaborated with many artists including David Stewart, Bananarama, the Lightning Seeds, Sinéad O'Connor, Stephen Duffy, Dub Pistols, Gorillaz, Damon Albarn, D12, Tricky, Lily Allen and Shakespears Sister.

Terence Edward Hall was born in Coventry, England, where he was also raised. He had a German-Jewish grandfather, and said of his heritage, "I grew up in an environment where you didn't really know where you were from. Coventry was built on immigrants because it was an industrial city looking for cheap labour. I don't think it's an accident that a group like the Specials came out of that".  Hall was abducted by a paedophile ring on a trip to France at the age of 12. He wrote about it in an autobiographical song "Well Fancy That!" on the Fun Boy Three's second album. He suffered from depression afterwards, ultimately leaving school before his fifteenth birthday, taking various short-term jobs, such as a bricklayer, quantity surveyor, and apprentice hairdresser.

Included in this set are the following albums:

Terry Hall - Home [1994]           Home is the début solo-album by the British singer Terry Hall. It was released in 1994 on the Anxious label. Although Hall had been in the music industry for fifteen years at the time of release, Home was his first album credited to him alone; previously Hall had recorded and fronted The Specials, Fun Boy Three, The Colourfield, Terry, Blair & Anouchka and Vegas.

Terry Hall - The Best of 1981-1997 [2012] (2 x CDs)       Perhaps second only to Morrissey when it comes to sardonic British pop, Coventry's finest, Terry Hall, spent the first half of his 30-year career drifting in and out of various bands of very different DNA before finally going it alone in the mid-'90s. As its title suggests, The Best of 1981-1997 charts this eclectic and nomadic journey (perhaps an inspiration for Damon Albarn's similar work ethic) over a rather comprehensive 42 tracks, taking in everything from tribal pop to bedsit indie to classic French chansons along the way. Of course, the complete absence of material from his iconic stint in ska outfit the Specials (and his 1994 solo debut, Home), ensures that despite its lengthy track list, it's never going to be as representative as 2001's The Complete Terry Hall, but otherwise, it contains pretty much everything you need to know. This collection demonstrates the breadth of Hall's range and confirms him as one of the mavericks of British pop.

Specials - The Best of The Specials [2008]          The Specials are one of the defining bands of the late 70’s/early 80’s along with Jerry Dammers iconic label Two Tone Records. Originally formed in 1977, as The Coventry Automatics, The Specials combined Jamaican ska and Rocksteady, mixed with the energy of punk they launched a whole Ska Revival. They also helped fellow likeminded bands such as Madness, The Beat, The Selecter to release their first singles. The Specials released ‘Gangsters’ as their first single in the summer of ’79, quickly releasing the classic singles A Message To You Rudy, Do Nothing and Rat Race. They released their debut album ‘Specials’ in 1979, followed by ‘More Specials’ in 1980. During this time, the band has two UK Number One singles, a live version of ‘Too Much Too Young’ from ‘The Special AKA Live EP’ and the unforgettable ‘Ghost Town’ in the summer of 1981. Jerry Dammers continued as The Special AKA following the departure of band members in late 1981, releasing their third album ‘In The Studio’ which included the iconic single ‘Nelson Mandela’. This 20 track compilation collects all their key singles and album tracks.

Fun Boy Three - The Best of Fun Boy Three [1984]          After the Specials' single "Ghost Town" was released, Hall left the band to start a new group called Fun Boy Three with two of his Specials bandmates, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple. Fun Boy Three's first hit single, "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)," was released in 1981 and was followed-up in 1982 with "It Ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)," a duet with Bananarama. Fun Boy Three then provided guest vocals for Bananarama's single, "Really Saying Something." In the same year, Hall and his bandmates appeared in the music video for "Driving in My Car" by Madness and released their debut studio album, Fun Boy Three, which reached No. 7 in the UK Albums Chart. In February 1983, Fun Boy Three released their second studio album, Waiting, which contained two Top Ten hits: "The Tunnel of Love" and "Our Lips Are Sealed". The latter was a song Hall had written with Jane Wiedlin, who had already had success in the US with a version of the song by her group the Go-Go's.

Colourfield - Virgins & Philistines [1985]          After the demise of The Fun Boy Three in 1983, Terry Hall formed the The Colourfield with ex-Swinging Cats member Toby Lyons and Coventry bassist Karl Shale. They released two singles in 1984, 'The Colour Field' and 'Take', before the release of 'Thinking of You' in January '85 took them into the UK Top 40, reaching #12. Following the success of 'Thinking of You' the band released this, their debut album, to critical acclaim from the music press. It has since become a collectable and cherished album amongst fans. This release presents the original UK vinyl track list plus an additional ten hard to find B-sides from the four singles.  Such an under rated album. Terry Hall is on point here with stinging lyrics about domestic heartbreak and animal farming. It turns gentle, whimsical, sad, autumnal, mellow and poppy. Forerunners to the Smiths later years. The 60s pop and folk references are obvious on this album, but it also shares the crisp production and stainless pop sheen of contemporaries like Prefab Sprout. It is bouncy, upbeat, orchestral pop with a dark vision at its core.

Terry, Blair and Anouchka - Ultra Modern Nursery Rhymes [1990]           Terry Hall has enjoyed almost two decades of success with several bands including the Specials, Fun Boy Three and Vegas, and also as a solo artist. This album showcases Hall's talents alongside collaborators Blair Booth and Anoushka Groce. A must for Terry Hall fans, the album was originally released in 1989 and has become a forgotten gem of Hall's wilful and often brilliant career. The album explores the trio's love of sixties pop, with a breezy and light musical feel, though the lyrical concerns are at times downbeat and a little kitsch.

Vegas - Vegas [1992]         Two years later, Hall returned with Vegas, a one-shot collaboration with Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics. Vegas' eponymous album was released in the fall of 1992 and yielded three minor U.K. hits: "Possessed," "She," and "Walk Into the Wind." Vegas wasn't particularly successful, and the duo disbanded in early 1993. 

Terry Hall & Mushtaq - The Hour of Two Lights [2003]     The Hour of Two Lights is a genre-bending work that fuses Arabic and Jewish musical forms, Asian and East European sounds, hip-hop atmospherics, wild Romani passions, and slamming beats. In short, an album quite unlike anything you've ever heard from Terry Hall before. That is partly because The Hour of Two Lights is not a Terry Hall solo album, although it may have started that way. First, Mushtaq, once of British-Asian pioneers Fun-Da-Mental, came on board as an equal partner. Then the cast-list expanded to include a Tunisian singer, a Syrian flautist, an Egyptian who had settled in Iraq, Hebrew vocalists, Turkish musicians, a 12-year-old Lebanese girl called Natasha, a blind Algerian rapper from Paris, a troupe of Polish Romani refugees, and a septuagenarian clarinetist famous for playing the Pink Panther theme. And Blur's Damon Albarn is also in there somewhere. And yet The Hour of Two Lights is not a world music record, or a DJ album. It's not even a DJ album with world influences. I don't think it fits with anything, really, Hall says. I don't really know what it is. Or what it isn't. Which, of course, isn't very helpful in a world that demands instant categorization and easy pigeon-holing. Yet there is a unifying thread that comes from a shared humanity. We wanted to take influences from everywhere, Hall says. But it's not a bish-bosh of other people's cultures. Everybody had a sense of something in common in their minority and oppression and struggle. In the end, it felt more like we were editing a film than making a record. As the songs took shape in all their unconventionality, more and more voices were added. Lyrics were translated into different languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, and Romani, with music as the Esperanto that united different cultures, traditions, and temperaments. This is really an incredible album!

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Track list

Terry Hall - Home [1994] 

01 Terry Hall Forever J 4:06

02 Terry Hall You 4:12

03 Terry Hall Sense 3:41

04 Terry Hall I Drew A Lemon 3:38

05 Terry Hall Moon On Your Dress 3:46

06 Terry Hall No No No 4:05

07 Terry Hall What's Wrong With Me 4:09

08 Terry Hall Grief Disguised As Joy 4:11

09 Terry Hall First Attack Of Love 3:42

10 Terry Hall I Don't Got You 3:41

Terry Hall - The Best of 1981-1997 [2012] CD1

01 Fun Boy Three With Bananarama It Ain't What You Do 2:47

02 Fun Boy Three Our Lips Are Sealed 2:50

03 Bananarama With Fun Boy Three Really Saying Something 2:40

04 The Colourfield Thinking Of You 3:28

05 Fun Boy Three The Lunatics Have Taken Over 3:12

06 Fun Boy Three The Tunnel Of Love 3:07

07 Fun Boy Three The Telephone Always Rings 3:30

08 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Missing 4:40

09 The Colourfield Colourfield 2:52

10 Fun Boy Three Summertime (Extended 12" Mix) 6:25

11 Fun Boy Three The More I See The Less I Believe 3:38

12 The Colourfield The Windmills Of Your Mind 2:59

13 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Ultra Modern Nursery Rhyme 4:04

14 Fun Boy Three The Farmyard Connection 2:47

15 The Colourfield Running Away 3:52

16 The Colourfield Your Love Was Smashing 3:57

17 Fun Boy Three Life In General (Lewe In Algemeen) 3:17

18 Vegas She 3:08

19 Fun Boy Three Faith Hope And Charity 2:49

20 The Colourfield My Wild Flame (Extended Version) 5:52

21 The Colourfield Faint Hearts 4:17

Terry Hall - The Best of 1981-1997 [2012] CD2

01 Fun Boy Three With Bananarama Funrama 2 6:01

02 Fun Boy Three Best Of Luck Mate 3:19

03 Bananarama With Fun Boy Three Heart Of America 4:57

04 Terry Hall Ballad Of A Landlord 3:51

05 Fun Boy Three With Bananarama Alone 2:58

06 Terry Hall I Saw The Light 3:12

07 The Colourfield Can't Get Enough Of You Baby 2:18

08 Fun Boy Three Going Home 3:35

09 Terry, Blaie & Anouchka Happy Families 3:19

10 Vegas Possessed 4:38

11 Fun Boy Three We're Having All The Fun 2:49

12 The Colourfield Castles In The Air 3:38

13 Fun Boy Three The Pressure Of Life (Takes The Weight Off The Body) 3:08

14 Terry Hall Music To Watch Girls By 2:52

15 Fun Boy Three Things We Do 3:34

16 Fun Boy Three Well Fancy That 3:05

17 The Colourfield Things Could Be Beautiful 3:23

18 Fun Boy Three I Don't Believe It 3:26

19 Fun Boy Three Summer Of '82 3:59

20 The Colourfield Cruel Circus 3:59

21 Fun Boy Three Way On Down 2:54

Specials - The Best of The Specials [2008]   

01 Specials Gangsters 2:49

02 Specials A Message To You Rudy 2:52

03 Specials Nite Klub 3:23

04 Specials Concrete Jungle 3:19

05 Specials Too Much Too Young 2:06

06 Specials Blank Expression 2:44

07 Specials Doesn't Make It Alright 3:27

08 Specials Rude Buoys Outa Jail 2:40

09 Specials Rat Race 3:10

10 Specials Man At C&A 3:38

11 Specials Do Nothing 3:41

12 Specials Stereotypes 7:26

13 Specials International Jet Set 5:40

14 Specials Friday Night, Saturday Morning 3:34

15 Specials Why? 2:56

16 Specials Ghost Town 6:01

17 Specials What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend 4:52

18 Specials Racist Friend 4:03

19 Specials War Crimes 4:03

20 Specials Nelson Mandela 4:17

Fun Boy Three - The Best of Fun Boy Three [1984]  

01 Fun Boy Three T'ain't What You Do (It's The Way That You Do It) (With Bananarama) 2:52

02 Fun Boy Three Really Saying Something (With Bananarama) 2:43

03 Fun Boy Three Summertime 3:10

04 Fun Boy Three The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum) 3:22

05 Fun Boy Three The More I See (The Less I Believe) 3:39

06 Fun Boy Three The Telephone Always Rings 3:32

07 Fun Boy Three Our Lips Are Sealed 2:52

08 Fun Boy Three The Tunnel Of Love 3:08

09 Fun Boy Three We're Having All The Fun 2:50

10 Fun Boy Three The Farmyard Connection 2:47

11 Fun Boy Three The Pressure Of Life (Takes The Weight Off The Body) 3:08

Colourfield - Virgins & Philistines [1985]

01 Colourfield Thinking Of You 3:32

02 Colourfield Faint Hearts 4:20

03 Colourfield Castles In The Air 3:42

04 Colourfield Take 4:09

05 Colourfield Cruel Circus 4:02

06 Colourfield Hammond Song 4:28

07 Colourfield Virgins And Philistines 3:55

08 Colourfield Yours Sincerely 3:41

09 Colourfield Armchair Theatre 5:01

10 Colourfield Sorry 3:18

Terry, Blair and Anouchka - Ultra Modern Nursery Rhymes [1990]

01 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Ultra Modern Nursery Rhyme 4:05

02 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Missing 4:40

03 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Fishbones And Scaredey Cats 4:26

04 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Lucky In Luv 3:39

05 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Day Like Today 3:18

06 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Sweet September Sacrifice 4:41

07 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Beautiful People 4:19

08 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Three Cool Catz 2:28

09 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Happy Families 3:22

10 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Just Go 4:20

11 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Hush Hush Balooo 3:37

12 Terry, Blair & Anouchka Love Will Keep Us Together 3:33

Vegas - Vegas [1992]

01 Vegas Possessed 4:52

02 Vegas Walk Into The Wind 5:18

03 Vegas She's Alright 4:13

04 Vegas Take Me For What I Am 4:52

05 Vegas The Trouble With Lovers 5:25

06 Vegas Nothing Alas Alack 5:18

07 Vegas The Thought Of You 3:49

08 Vegas Wise Guy 7:22

09 Vegas The Day It Rained Forever 4:46

10 Vegas She 3:11

Terry Hall & Mushtaq - The Hour of Two Lights [2003] 

01 Terry Hall & Mushtaq Grow 5:53

02 Terry Hall & Mushtaq A Gathering Storm 5:05

03 Terry Hall & Mushtaq Ten Eleven 4:59

04 Terry Hall & Mushtaq Sticks And Stones 4:13

05 Terry Hall & Mushtaq The Silent Wail 7:08

06 Terry Hall & Mushtaq A Tale Of Woe 4:22

07 Terry Hall & Mushtaq The Hour Of Two Lights 5:55

08 Terry Hall & Mushtaq This And That 4:34

09 Terry Hall & Mushtaq They Gotta Quit Kicking My Dog Around 5:06

10 Terry Hall & Mushtaq Stand Together 4:46

11 Terry Hall & Mushtaq Epilogue 5:10

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