The charismatic singer took the Beat out of the two-tone scene and into major US success – and played with the Clash and Sting
When the Beat turned up on Top of the Pops in December 1979, they seemed to be the perfect two-tone band. They came from the Midlands, had their roots in a punk band called the Dum Dum Boys and played a fast, choppy, irreverent take on a 60s classic: Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown rendered as post-punk ska. They had a multiracial lineup – vocals were shared between Dave Wakelin and 16-year-old drummer Roger Charlery, whose parents came from Saint Lucia – and at least one member who performed under a pseudonym: Charlery, who has died aged 56, called himself Ranking Roger, a name based on the old reggae MC’s boast that they were “top ranking”. They had an old ska hero in their ranks – saxophonist Lionel “Saxa” Martin, who was almost 50 when Tears of a Clown made the Top 10, and who had played with Prince Buster and Laurel Aitken in his youth – and a vaguely retro look. In his sharp suit and pork-pie hat, Charlery in particular looked as if he’d arrived at Top of the Pops direct from a 1960s Jamaican dance hall.
They ticked every one of the burgeoning movement’s boxes, but the Beat were not cut out to merely follow in the Specials’ wake. They released only one single on 2 Tone Records before starting their own label, Go-Feet, complete with a logo featuring Beat Girl, a beehive-sporting female counterpart of 2 Tone’s cartoon mascot Walt Jabsco. They were far too musically adventurous to be bound by the ska revival. For all Charlery’s on-stage charisma seemed to embody two-tone’s joyous get-up-there-and-do-it spirit, behind it was an artist bold enough to help break them out of any generic confines.
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