Product Description

1979. The dawn of Thatcher's Britain. It's a country crippled by strikes, joblessness and economic gloom, divided by race and class - and skanking to a new beat: 2-Tone. The unruly offspring of white boy punk and rude boy ska, the new music's undeniable leaders were The Specials. Bursting out of Coventry's concrete jungle, their lyrics spoke of failed marriages, petty violence, crowded dancefloors, gangsters and race hate - but with a wit that outshone their angry punk forebears. On stage they were electric, and at the heart of this energy was the vocal chemistry of the ethereal Terry Hall and Jamaican rude boy Neville Staple. In 1961, aged only five, Neville was sent to England to live with his father - a man for whom discipline bordered on child abuse. Growing up black in the Midlands of the sixties and seventies wasn't easy, but then Nev was hardly an angel. His youth was marked by scuffles with skins, compulsive womanising, and a life of crime that led from shoplifting to burglary and eventually borstal and Wormwood Scrubs. But throughout there was music, and now Nev tells how a very bad boy became part of the most important band of the eighties. He remembers sound system battles; the legendary 2-Tone tour with The Selecter, Madness and Dexy's - and their clashes with NF thugs; he recalls the band's increasing tensions and eventual split; his subsequent foray into bubblegum pop with Fun Boy Three; and a new found fame in America, as godfather to the third wave of ska and bands like Gwen Stefani's No Doubt. Raucous and charming Original Rude Boy is the story of a man who done too much, much too young. Neville Staple was a frontman with The Specials, a member of the hugely successful pop trio Fun Boy Three and now tours the world with own his own ska act The Neville Staple Band. www.nevillestaple.co.uk

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6122 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Skanktastic!
If you've been lucky enough to get tickets to The Specials' reunion tour, or see Neville live with his own band, you'll understand what I mean when I say this autobiography is as energetic and entertaining as the man himself. However, it's emphatically not a book for musos! Although a large stretch of the story is devoted to The Specials, 2 Tone, and Neville, Lynval and Terry's subsequent foray into pop with Fun Boy Three, the emphasis is on touring, performing, the dynamics within the band, bad behaviour and conflict - not composition and recording studios. And given Neville isn't a musician, but a self-confessed entertainer (he starts out as one of the band's roadies) that's both forgivable and refreshing.

What you get instead is the other half of 2 Tone's musical heritage. Terry Hall's couldn't-give-a-f*ck post-punk stage presence and Jerry Dammers's art school musical perfectionism are given their dues, but really this is the story of the working class Jamaican kids who brought ska to the Midlands and, through 2 Tone, the world. The first few chapters of the book - Neville's early years in Jamaica, growing up in Rugby and Coventry, his abusive father, riots ands fights with skinheads, the sound system scene, burglary and borstal - read like the source material for films like Scum or This Is England. It's edgy, amoral and fast. However, when he meets the then Coventry Automatics the story soon becomes one of rock 'n' roll excess, infighting and, above all, a sheer love of performing. Then, unfortunately, the Eighties really get going and bubblegum pop becomes the order of the day.

The most striking thing that emerges from the book, however, is the difference in attitude between Neville, fellow roadies Rex Griffiths and Trevor Evans, and the rest of the band. Having grown up poor, black and occasionally criminal, Neville seems like he can't believe his luck - and he certainly doesn't believe it'll last. So, he takes everything he can get - money, girls, booze, drugs and cars - and lives the life of an unabashed rude boy. At times other band members, Jerry and Horace in particular, clearly disapprove - seemingly on political grounds. But whereas Nev's clearly with them on some things - there's a lot of wading into crowds and walloping skinheads and NF thugs - socialist self-denial isn't one of them. In a sense, if the book has an argument, it's that you can't have the ska without the rude boy.

Original Rude Boy is a rough, ready and thoroughly entertaining read - but, as the Britain of 2009 looks back on 2 Tone with nostalgic, rose-tinted specs, it's also a timely reminder of the politically charged, racist, sometimes criminal Britain from which that music literally had to fight its way out.

Rude Boy Returns
I recieved this read as a present & have to say, could not put it down. The Specials & Neville were/are the consummate performers, entertaining, hard hitting & realist. This describes the book to the letter, bringing the reader life for Neville, arriving in a turbulent Britain & rising to the adversity of his domestic life.
Not always legal, but dealing with his lot in the only way he knew.
He was & is part of the most influential bands of the 20th century.
Fully recommended for those who remember & to those who may be witnessing the second coming.

You've been Nev'ed
After renewing my love of the specials after the recent tour , i thought i would give Nev's book a read , a cracking insight to the life of Nev and his mates , even though he has been a bit of a bad lad , he came across quite genuine and clearly loves to entertain and put a bit of joy back into peoples lives .
Get reading.