The Specials (The Special AKA) - Gangsters (1979) • TopPop

“Gangsters“ is the first single by the Special . (The Specials). “Gangsters“ was recorded in January 1979 in Studio One of Horizon Studios in Coventry. Horace Panter recalls that the song “had so much bass on it that it had to be recut as the bass blew the needle out of the record’s grooves“ and that “to compensate for the low end, Jerry [Dammers] overdubbed a treble-heavy piano on“. The vocals were created by Terry Hall singing a “bored“ vocal and an “angry“ vocal, which were then mixed together. The Specials, also known as The Special AKA, are an English 2 Tone and ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry. After some early changes, the first stable lineup of the group consisted of Terry Hall and Neville Staple on vocals, Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation on guitars, Horace Panter on bass, Jerry Dammers on keyboards, John Bradbury on drums, and Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez on horns. Their music combines a “danceable sk