A playlist of Terry Hall’s favourite songs
As the innovative frontman of The Specials and later Fun Boy Three and The Colourfield, Terry Hall combined punk and ska with the angst of working-class middle England. From the sleepy streets of Coventry, The Specials spearheaded the late-1970s ska revival, bringing Jamaican rhythms to geographically relevant themes.
Hall’s impressive tenure helming The Specials brought an artistic illustration of a time and place in post-industrial Thatcher-era Britain. The Specials’ bassist Horace Panter once said, “discovering the Specials in Coventry was a little bit like discovering an armchair in your front room” because the sound was so infused with the forgotten, multicultural city.
Over the 1980s and beyond, Hall continued to broaden his musical horizons and blessed us with a diverse catalogue of innumerable points of influence. Four weeks ago, Hall tragically passed away at the age of 63; in celebration of the late creative and his brilliantly eclectic taste in music, we’ve created a playlist of his favourite songs.
“Pin-Ups by David Bowie was the first record I played on repeat. I was 14 and totally obsessed,” Hall said in a 2016 interview feature with Fred Perry.
Like many musicians of his generation and even those subsequent, Hall was in awe of Bowie’s unparalleled contributions over the 1970s. “Although not obviously connected musically, I still draw inspiration from artists like Roxy Music and David Bowie and The Clash,” he added, discussing how his early influences prevailed through the decades. “It’s still all about a certain attitude for me.”
Later in the Fred Perry feature, Hall revealed his love for contemporary Toronto-based artist Sway Clarke. “Voice shines out,” he noted. “Hints of Outkast – but with own direction. Stand-out tracks are ‘I Don’t Need Much’ and ‘Bad Love’. Cliched but always true. Judge an artist stripped bare with only an acoustic guitar and a voice. Sway Clarke passes the test.”
The below playlist has been collated from both Hall’s discussion with Fred Perry and the songs he chose to play during a guest DJ appearance on BBC Radio 6 in 2014. From both features, it’s safe to say, Richard Hell and The Voidoids’ ‘Blank Generation’ was the most important song in Hall’s life.
After picking out Scott Walker’s ‘If You Go Away’ as the one song he wished he had written, Hall revealed that his “favourite album at the mo is Blank Generation by Richard Hell and The Voidoids. And fave track would be… ‘Blank Generation’.”
Hall also pulled ‘Blank Generation’ out of the bag for the concluding song of his BBC Radio 6 set. “I’m going to leave you with Richard Hell and the Voidoids and the song that made me want to form a band more than any other. It’s called ‘Blank Generation’.”
See our complete list of Terry Hall’s favourite songs below. If you like what you see, follow our Spotify playlist.
Terry Hall’s favourite songs:
- David Bowie – ‘Sorrow’
- Richard Hell and the Voidoids – ‘Blank Generation’
- Scott Walker – ‘If You Go Away’
- Sway Clarke – ‘Bad Love’
- Sway Clarke – ‘I Don’t Need Much’
- Momus – ‘The Hairstyle of the Devil’
- Max Romeo and the Upsetters – ‘Chase the Devil’
- Dady Livingston – ‘Big City’
- Alan Price and Georgie Fame – ‘Rosetta’
- Talking Heads – ‘Cities’
- Dory Previn – ‘Beware of Young Girls’
- Paul McCartney – ‘Junk’
- John Holt – ‘Ali Baba’
- Sparks – ‘Thanks But No Thanks’
- David Essex – ‘Lamplight’
- China Crisis – ‘Black Man Ray’
- Jimi Hendrix – ‘Manic Depression’
- Buzzcocks – ‘Love You More’
- Randy Newman – ‘Mama Told Me Not To Come’
- Fat White Family – ‘Touch the Leather’
- David Bowie – ‘Always Crashing in the Same Car’
- Helen Reddy – ‘Angie Baby’
- Sly & The Family Stone – ‘Everybody is a Star’
- Harry J Allstars – ‘Liquidator’
- Joan Armatrading – ‘Me Myself I’
- Kevin Ayers – ‘Shouting in a Bucket of Blues’
- Taraf de Haidouks – ‘A Gypsy Had a House’
- Roxy Music – ‘Pyjamarama’
- The Raincoats – ‘Fairytale in the Supermarket’
- Carmel – ‘Bad Day’
- Jo Jo Gunne – ‘Run Run Run’
- Big Star – ‘September Gurls’
- The Doors – ‘Moonlight Drive’
- The Statler Brothers – ‘Fowers on the Wall’
- Chris Monetz – ‘Sunny’
