I was shocked and dismayed this evening to see a post from Pauline Black to inform people that another member of the 2 Tone family has passed away... Arthur 'Gaps' Hendrickson, the perfect compliment to Pauline at the front of a Selecter gig died after a short illness on 11th June 2024.
Whilst I did not see The Selecter in the first adrenaline rush of 2 Tone, I saw a couple of versions of the band in the early to mid '90's, which was fine, but it is undoubtable that Gaps coming back into the fold gave the band a real boost and enabled the band to reach new creative heights with a series of critically acclaimed albums of new material. A second singer also redressed the original balance that seemed to be at the heart of the 2 Tone sound. I saw another post on Facebook tonight that pointed out that The Specials had Terry and Nev, The Beat had Dave and Roger, Madness had Suggs and Chas and The Selecter had Pauline and Gaps. Makes sense and think about how important that vocal balance was in the 2 Tone canon.
I only met Gaps once at the Godiva Festival when he and Pauline met our son, Rudi.
RIP Gaps, you along with your fellow 2 Tone musicians changed the narrative at a critical and unsavory time in British politics... sadly we need your successors now as the message seems to have been forgotten.
No comments:
Post a Comment