Jeremy David Hounsell Dammers GCOT (born 22 May 1955) is a British musician who was a founder, keyboard player and primary songwriter of the Coventry-based ska band The Specials (also known as The Special A.K.A.) and later The Spatial AKA Orchestra. Through his foundation of the record label Two Tone, his work blending political lyrics and punk with Jamaican music, and his incorporation of 1960s retro clothing, Dammers is a pivotal figure of the ska revival. He has also been acknowledged in his work for racial unity.
Biography
Dammers was born in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu, South India, the son of Horace Dammers who was later Dean of Bristol Cathedral from 1973 to 1987. Jerry Dammers attended King Henry VIII School, Coventry.
He left India at the age of 2, first living in Sheffield, then moving to Coventry at the age of 10. His initial music influences were 60's bands like The Who, The Small Faces, The Kinks, which made him want to be in a band, and he was also influenced by soul music.
Dammers was a young mod in the 1960s while at school then became a hippie, before becoming a skinhead. Dammers decided at the age of 10 he was going to have a band, and spent his teenage years learning music and writing songs. He played in a range of bands, from reggae punk, to country and western. Dammers had been a member of The Cissy Stone Soul Band however he couldn't get them to play any of his work. He studied art at Coventry's Lanchester Polytechnic (now Coventry University), where he met Horace Panter. Frustrated at only doing covers, Dammers was asked to leave the Cissy Stone Soul band, and then played keyboards with Hard Top 22, a reggae band that had many members that would later become The Selecter.
While at a gig in his teens, someone threw a pint glass at his face, knocking out his two front teeth, which he never had repaired.
The Specials
Dammers was one of the founding members of iconic ska revivalist band The Specials. Previous to the Specials, Dammers had played with Neol Davies (of The Selecter) and other reggae musicians who would later form The Selecter. He had written songs in his teens, and his idea in forming the Specials was that it would combine reggae and punk. He formed the band, initially called the Coventry Automatics, with vocalist Tim Strickland, guitarist/vocalist Lynval Golding, drummer Silverton Hutchinson, and bassist Horace Panter in 1977. He then asked Terry Hall to join. Hall was doing vocals with Squad and Roddy Radiation, both of whom were part of the local Coventry punk scene. Dammers has said that anti-racism was a key element of the band, and the Rock Against Racism movement was formed at the same time. He also saw the Specials as an opportunity to integrate white and black people through the same music, and he picked members to make the band multi-racial. Until this time, white British people mainly played rock, blues and jazz; black British people played reggae, jazz, and soul. The Specials was an opportunity to have black and white people in the same band, something unusual at the time, through playing ska.
GQ editor Dylan Jones noted that the Specials differed from other ska bands at the time because of Dammers’ political messages in the Specials' lyrics. After talking their way onto a tour with The Clash, then a better-known group, Dammers pushed The Specials to adopt the Mod/Rude boy fashion sub-culture, and this look was copied by fans of the band.
They released their first album, The Specials, which was successful, and then their second album, More Specials, which was less so.
After some issues with Roddy Radiation not being able to play Neville Staple, Terry Hall and Lynval Golding at this point left the band to form Fun Boy Three.
The Special AKA and "Free Nelson Mandela" The band changed its lineup and rebadged as The Special AKA, releasing another album and the single "Free Nelson Mandela". Dammers then dissolved the band. Free Nelson Mandela had a role in the downfall of Apartheid, as it raised awareness of the issue, and became an Anthem of the Anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. The Guardian referred to it as "one of the most effective protest songs in History"
Dammers had at times attempted to re-join the re-formed Specials, but in 2008 he stated that things had not worked out, and his attempts were not welcome.