[guest post by JVW]

It might only register with my generation, but I am saddened today by the death of Ranking Roger, late of the 1980s bands The Beat (known in North America as The English Beat) and General Public. If any of you have been watching the multi-part Epix documentary Punk, you probably saw the episode on how Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls, and the Ramones brought American do-it-yourself hard rock to England, where it was fused with styles from the New World colonies — ska, rocksteady, and reggae — to create a New Wave sound that would dominate the early Reagan/Thatcher years and would give us diverse sounds running the gamut from The Cure to U2.

The Beat, formed in hardscrabble Birmingham in 1978 (the same year the Sex Pistols flamed out), featured three Caribbean band members, among them a Birmingham-born teenage son of West Indian immigrants. Roger Charlery was a punk rock drummer who had adopted the dub practice of “toasting,” a spoken style of freestyle vocalizing over music similar to what was happening among MCs in the burgeoning New York rap music scene. Charlery went by the professional name of Ranking Roger, with “ranking” signifying his status as a top practitioner of toasting. The band honed their craft in Birmingham, playing mostly house parties since the very few pubs and clubs who would pay a band for gigs in the economically-depressed Callaghan years preferred to host a more traditional rock-and-roll sound. With another ska-punk fusion band called The Specials gaining notice a mere twenty miles away in Coventry and fellow Birmingham band UB40 promoting a more traditional reggae sound infused with British pop, the midlands became the center for the new musical fusion.

“Tears of a Clown,” a remake of the old Smokey Robinson song, became The Beat’s first record when it was a released as a single in late 1979. (Quick digression: the first single was supposed to be the band’s own composition and ultimately one of their best-known songs, “Mirror in the Bathroom,” but the band got cold feet and decided to play it safe with a Motown chestnut that had been well-received at their live shows.) The single eventually reached #6 on the UK charts, but I have a suspicion that the B-side, “Ranking Full Stop,” was far better received on the dance floor. This song is a pretty fair representation of the toasting style that Ranking Roger and other practitioners of dub were demonstrating to working-class English kids. Here’s the song performed by the band shortly after their first LP, I Just Can’t Stop It, was released:

If you have the time, it’s worth watching all 25 minutes of this set in full. Try to imagine how unique this sound must have been to kids had been weaned on Elton John, the Bee Gees, and Rod Stewart.

The Beat would release two more albums, reach an American audience via their solid sets at the first two US Festivals, then, all too predictably, succumb to the pressures of constantly recording and touring. By 1983 the band had splintered, with Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling forming General Public, who hit it big with “Tenderness,” a peppy song about unfulfilled love with an instantly recognizable hook that even the young kids these days will groove to:

The Beat got together again in various iterations throughout the past 30 years, sometimes with Ranking Roger and sometimes without him. It probably goes without saying that their shows were considerably better when both Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger were at the microphone; now that won’t be possible. Hearing his voice brings back fond memories of my youth, and it’s one of those unavoidable signs of getting old to know that it is henceforth silenced. Rest in peace.

– JVW