This month marked the one-year anniversary of the death of The Specials and Fun Boy Three frontman Terry Hall. One of British music’s most iconic and visionary figures, Hall passed away as a result of pancreatic cancer in December 2022. Promoting a long-awaited box set collating Fun Boy Three, the group that Hall, guitarist Lynval Golding and singer Neville Staple formed upon leaving The Specials in 1981, Golding paid tribute to his former bandmate and lifelong friend speaking to this writer in an interview for The New Cue earlier this year.
“Oh my God, what a lyricist,” marvelled Golding, looking back over the work he and Hall had put out as Fun Boy Three. “When you listen to Tunnel Of Love and see the way the man writes those lyrics and the way he delivered those lyrics so clearly, you understand every word he's saying. You look at The Lunatics and the songs he picked that we covered, like It Ain’t What You Do (It’s The Way That You Do It), what a genius."
