Jerry Dammers (born Jeremy Dammers, 22 May 1955, Ootacamund,
India) was
the founder and keyboard player of the Coventry based
ska band, The
Specials (changed from The Special A.K.A.).
He also contributed in founding the 2
Tone record
label, which helped to popularize the new sound of the ska revival in the 1980s. He became a
noted anti-apartheid
campaigner, writing the song
"Free Nelson Mandela" about the
jailed South
African ANC leader; plus
organizing the Nelson Mandela
70th Birthday Tribute concert, which was broadcast worldwide from London's Wembley Stadium, on June 11, 1988. That same year,
he briefly played with the re-formed Madness
on their single "I Pronounce You" and its attendant album.
While Dammers has fallen out of the spotlight in recent years,
he still regularly DJs in English clubs.
In November 2006 he celebrated being awarded an honorary
degree from Coventry University by DJing at
the launch party of the Coventry branch of the "Love Music Hate Racism"
organisation. In the same month he attended the private view of a Harry
Pye curated art exhibition in East
London that featured paintings of bands and singers that had
once been championed by the DJ John Peel. Dammers read out a four page poem, in which he
thanked John Peel for helping his own band, and for supporting black musicians.
Carl
Barât of The Libertines recently
included a Dammers' composition - "Too Much Too Young" - on his own
personal compilation album
Under The Influence. Those who have recorded a song written by
Dammers include Tricky,
("Ghost
Town"), The Prodigy ("Nite Klub") and Elvis
Costello ("What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend").
Dammers has produced singles for Robert
Wyatt, the Untouchables, UB40
and Junior
Delgado. He contributed "Riot City" to the soundtrack
of the Julien Temple film, Absolute Beginners
and "Brightlights" to the compilation album, Jamming:
A New Optimism.
When asked by a journalist from Smash Hits
magazine
what his motto was, Dammers quoted a Dr. John lyric: "Quitters never win and winners never
quit".
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