Rhoda Dakar | |
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| Born | 1959 |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
Rhoda Dakar (born 1959) is a British singer and musician, best known as the lead singer of The Bodysnatchers, who were signed to the 2 Tone record label. She also worked with The Specials/Special AKA, and also other 2-Tone artists.
Dakar, born in Hampstead, London, joined The Bodysnatchers in 1979. Their first single was a double A-side "Let's Do Rock Steady" backed with "Ruder Than You". It reached # 22 in the UK Singles Chart. [1] The band were invited to appear on Top of the Pops , to tour with The Selecter and to record a session for BBC Radio 1 disc jockey John Peel. Their second single "Easy Life" coupled with their version of Bob Andy's "Too Experienced" reached number 50. Several members of the Bodysnatchers then left to form The Belle Stars.
Dakar also collaborated with The Specials. Her duet with Terry Hall, "I Can't Stand It", appeared on the album More Specials . She also sang backing vocals on Pearl's Cafe on the album. After The Specials announced their break up in 1981, Jerry Dammers formed The Special AKA, along with Dakar and John Bradbury. Their first single release, "The Boiler", reached # 35 in the UK Singles Chart in 1982. [2]
Dakar performed on The Special AKA album In the Studio , which featured the UK Top 10 single "Free Nelson Mandela". The album reached # 34 in the UK Albums Chart. [2]
Her first solo album, Cleaning in Another Woman's Kitchen, was released in November 2007 on Moon Ska World. It featured acoustic versions of songs from the Bodysnatchers as well as material co-written with Nick Welsh, who attended the same comprehensive school as Buster Bloodvessel, and who recorded as King Hammond in the early 1990s. Dakar and Welsh released a garage rock album Back to the Garage on N1 Records in April 2009.
In 2009, she was the featured guest vocalist on the song "On the Town" on the Madness album The Liberty of Norton Folgate . She performed the track at their Madstock show in Victoria Park, London in July 2009.
In 2014, she returned to the studio to re-record The Bodysnatchers tracks for the album Rhoda Dakar sings the Bodysnatchers. The line up for the recording included Lynval Golding and Horace Panter from The Specials, plus members of Pama International and Intensified.
The single "Stand Together" was a collaboration with the Dub Pistols, released coincidentally on Blackout Tuesday in June 2020. The video featured US activists Martin Luther King, Malcom X and Rosa Parks.
In 2022, Rhoda had a guest appearance on the song "As We Live" on the album "In the Wild" by The Interrupters. [3]
In May 2023 Dakar released "Version Girl", an album of covers of some of her favourite songs, on Sunday Best records. The culmination of a project spawning five singles, the first of which, "Everyday Is Like Sunday", was released in April 2021. The project was delayed by the Covid pandemic and the subsequent 'great vinyl shortage'. Another single has been added to the set, "I Don't Mind", a Buzzcocks cover, not available on the album and released in February 2024. The project is notable for having all the artwork designed by acclaimed Sheffield artist Pete McKee.
The Specials, also known as The Special AKA, were 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, Jerry Dammers on keyboards, Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation on guitars, Horace Panter on bass, John Bradbury on drums, and Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez on horns. The band wore mod-style "1960s period rude boy outfits ". Their music combines the danceable rhythms of ska and rocksteady with the energy and attitude of punk. Lyrically, their work presented overt political and social commentary.
More Specials is the second album by English ska band the Specials, released by 2 Tone Records in September 1980. After the success of the band's debut album, band member Jerry Dammers assumed the role as the band's leader and stirred them into expanding their 2 Tone sound into other genres of music, most prominently a lounge music and easy listening style inspired by Muzak. Several band members disagreed with Dammers' vision and brought their own influences to the album, including from northern soul and rockabilly, contributing to an eclectic sound palette. The relations between band members continued to sour into the album's accompanying tour and most of the band departed in 1981.
Mary Hopkin, credited on some recordings as Mary Visconti from her marriage to Tony Visconti, is a Welsh singer best known for her 1968 UK number 1 single "Those Were the Days". She was one of the first artists to be signed to the Beatles' Apple label.
Jeremy David Hounsell Dammers GCOT is a British musician who was a founder, keyboard player and primary songwriter of the Coventry-based ska band the Specials and later the Spatial AKA Orchestra. Through his foundation of the record label Two Tone, his work blending political lyrics and punk with Jamaican music, and his incorporation of 1960s retro clothing, Dammers is a pivotal figure of the ska revival. He has also been acknowledged in his work for racial unity.
The Selecter is an English 2 tone ska revival band, formed in Coventry, England, in 1979.
The Bodysnatchers were a seven-piece all-female band involved in the British 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
2 Tone Records was an English independent record label that mostly released ska and reggae-influenced music with a punk rock and pop music overtone. It was founded by Jerry Dammers of the Specials and backed by Chrysalis Records.
"Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" is a 1953 novelty song, with lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Nat Simon. It was written on the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. The lyrics humorously refer to the official renaming of the city of Constantinople to Istanbul. The song's original release, performed by The Four Lads, was certified as a gold record. Numerous cover versions have been recorded over the years, most famously a 1990 rock version by They Might Be Giants.
Imaani Saleem is an English singer, best known for representing the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 in Birmingham with the song "Where Are You". The song placed second in the contest, and became a top 20 hit in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
James Kerr is a Scottish singer and the lead singer of the rock band Simple Minds, becoming best known internationally for "Don't You " (1985), which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. Other commercially successful singles include "Glittering Prize" (1982), "Someone Somewhere in Summertime" (1982), "Waterfront" (1983) and "Alive and Kicking" (1985), as well as the UK number one single "Belfast Child" (1989).
DJ Luck & MC Neat are a British musical duo, composed of Joel Samuels and Michael Rose mainly performing a combination of house music and UK garage. They had three consecutive top 10 hits in the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2000.
Moon Ska World, formerly known as Moon Ska Europe, was a ska record label based in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1998 as the European sister label of the defunct American label Moon Ska Records, which was owned by Robert "Bucket" Hingley of The Toasters. Moon Ska World is a licensed affiliate run by Laurie "Lol" Pryor, former manager of The Business and Dojo Records and Link Records head. Due to illnesses in both Pryor and the other principal owner, Sonia "Red" Bailey, as well as deaths in their families, the label was put on hold until 2006, when Pryor changed its name to Moon Ska World and began running the label on his own.
"Sunday Girl" is a song recorded by the American new wave band Blondie, from the band's 1978 album Parallel Lines. Written by guitarist Chris Stein, the song was inspired by Debbie Harry's cat, who was named Sunday Man—the cat had recently run away, inspiring the song's "plaintive" nature.
Maria Nayler is a British singer.
"Nelson Mandela" is a song written by British musician Jerry Dammers, and performed by the band the Special A.K.A. with a lead vocal by Stan Campbell. It was first released on the single "Nelson Mandela"/"Break Down the Door" in 1984.
"We'll Sing in the Sunshine" is a 1964 hit song written and recorded by Gale Garnett which reached No. 2 in Canada, and No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending 17 October 1964. It also enjoyed success on easy listening and country music radio stations, spending seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart and No. 42 on the country chart. The Cash Box Top 100 ranked "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" at No. 1 for the week of 31 October 1964, and it also reached No. 1 in Garnett's native New Zealand that November. In Australia, "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" afforded Garnett a Top Ten hit with a No. 10 peak in October 1964. Garnett's sole Top 40 hit, "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" won the Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1965.
English ska revival band the Specials have released a diverse discography since their debut in 1979, including: nine studio albums, one collaboration album, five live albums, eleven compilation albums, four extended plays, twenty-three singles, and filmed five videos.
"Doctor's Orders" is a song written by Roger Cook, Roger Greenaway and Geoff Stephens which, in 1974, was a hit in the UK for Sunny of Sue and Sunny; in the US the song was a hit for Carol Douglas.
"The Boiler" is a single by Rhoda Dakar with The Special AKA. It was released in January 1982 on 2 Tone Records.
"Let's Do Rock Steady", also known as "(People Get Ready) Let's Do Rock Steady" and "People Do Rock Steady", is rocksteady song by Dandy Livingstone that was first released in October 1967 as the flip side to his single "We Are Still Rude". It was then released in early 1968 on his album Rock Steady with Dandy as "People Do Rock Steady". The song is better known for being covered by the Bodysnatchers in 1980.
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