The Specials

The Specials were a British ska revival septet who in the late '70s and early '80s were at the forefront of the UK 2 Tone movement, which was popular among skinheads, rudies and some mod revivalists. Among their UK hit singles were "Gangsters," "Too Much Too Young" and "Ghost Town."

The Specials set up the 2 Tone record label distributed by Chrysalis in 1979. 2 Tone Records signed other successful ska revival bands The Selecter, Madness and The Beat, but they all left within two years. The label stopped operating in 1986.

The band imploded in 1981 when the three frontmen, Terry Hall, Neville Staple and Lynval Golding, left to form Fun Boy Three. Keyboard player and chief songwriter Jerry Dammers drastically revised the lineup, adding vocalists Stan Campbell and Rhoda Dakar, and began working again under the group name The Special AKA. They had a hit in 1984 with "Nelson Mandela." The song contributed to making Mandela a cause célèbre in the United Kingdom and became popular with anti-Apartheid activists in South Africa.