Terry Hall (Enjoy Yourself) Linocut Print
A signed, hand carved, hand pressed Linocut print of Terry Hall, limited to only 100 editions.
Terence Edward Hall was born 19th March 1959 in the Midlands city of Coventry. His uniquely melancholic tones hinted at his lifelong battle with depression, instigated by an horrendous childhood trauma in which he was abducted by his school teacher in France and subjected to repeated sexual abuse over a period of four days, before being punched in the face and left by the roadside. The Valium he was prescribed to deal with this abuse led to addiction aged only 12, and an inevitable downward spiral of mental health issues throughout his life. Music was a catharsis however, and if you listen to the lyrics of the 1983 Fun Boy Three hit , ‘Well Fancy That!’ you will hear that it’s all about this harrowing real-life experience.
Terry Hall first made it “big” as part of a multicultural band at a time of overt racism. With five white band members and two Black ones, The Specials “were a celebration of how British culture was invigorated by Caribbean immigration,” wrote Billy Bragg, the British singer-songwriter known for his leftist politics. The Specials were forerunners in Ska and the associated Two Tone record label, and their political activism through the conduit of music was unlike any other, before or since. They released their debut album in 1979, produced by musician Elvis Costello. Between July 1979 and June 1981 they had seven consecutive Top 10 hits, starting with their very first single, ‘Gangsters’, reaching the dizzying heights of No. 6 and culminating in their most famous record, ‘Ghost Town’, reaching No. 1 in June 1981. If a single song could define the 1980s, the iconic ‘Ghost Town’ was it. Released in a period of prevalent rioting which had been fuelled by inner-city deprivation and police discrimination against black youths, ‘Ghost Town’ was THE protest soundtrack of an entire generation against the backdrop of ‘Thatcher’s Britain’.
The Specials dissolved soon after this whirlwind success, but Hall then went on to enjoy further successes with Fun Boy Three, continuing to make other activist records such as ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum’ or the aforementioned ‘Well Fancy That!’ After Fun Boy Three disbanded, he helped form Colourfield, a pop band based in Manchester, in 1984, whilst the some of the remaining members of The Specials (without Hall) regrouped as the Special AKA to release their 1984 Top 10 hit with another protest song, ‘Nelson Mandela’. Meanwhile, The Colourfield’s upbeat pop was a musical departure for Hall, with their love song ‘Thinking of You’ reaching No. 12 the following year.
Fast forward 34 years, Terry Hall had nostalgically gone back to his Specials roots with a new 2019 incarnation which included original band members, Lynval Golding and Horace Panter. My husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary by seeing The Specials play live at the Brixton Academy as part of their 40th anniversary tour, and the thing I loved most was that they were still shouting, still protesting and still using their voice! That same year they released the album, “Encore,” which focussed on contemporary racist issues such as Black Lives Matter, then in 2021 the band released an album of covers called “Protest Songs: 1924-2012”, with a further reggae album in the pipeline. But this sadly never came to fruition because in October 2022, Terry Hall discovered he had pancreatic cancer which had already spread to his liver. He died 18th December 2022, aged just 63.
Enjoy Yourself… It’s Later than You Think.
ITEM SPECIFICS:
This design is a signed, hand-carved, handprinted, limited edition of only 100 prints. As with all handmade items, each one will vary slightly, making it completely unique.
It is printed with water-based ink on Awagami Silk Pure White Paper. At 68gsm this washi is a medium weight Japanese paper with 2 distinct surface textures, warm white in colour. The image itself is approximately A4 in size.
