Neville Staple - The Original Rude Boy has a message to you - Rewind South 2019

The legendary totem of 2-tone, with a forty-year career from his time with The Specials, Fun Boy Three, Special Beat and since 2012 with his own band, Neville Staple was in fine form at the Rewind South festival.

With the enviable task of following an incendiary opening set by ‘From The Jam’, this Sultan of Ska had the whole crowd skanking from the first beat of ‘Gangsters’ to the haunting finale of ‘Ghost Town’. Another Staple singer energetically shared the stage and vocal duties, in the form of Neville’s wife Christine Sugary. Channelling her best Bananarasta on ‘Really Saying Something’ and providing great stage presence on ‘A Message To You Rudy’, she’s a key part of rock-steady and uplifting sound of Neville’s superb band, which includes longstanding allies Joe Atkinson on keys and the mighty ‘riddim’ section of Sledge and Matty Bane.

The 2-Tone celebration in the Thameside sunshine continued with The Selector, still led by the charismatic Pauline Black, who took to the stage at the same time as The Original Rude Boy sat down to speak to Andy Rawll for Decibel Report:

Q: I'm delighted to be with Neville Staple or should I say, Doctor Staple, as you received an honorary doctorate recently from Arden University.

A: Coming from the street I didn't expect it, but I'm now a Doctor of Music. It's great.

Q: It's been a tremendous journey from The Specials, Fun Boy Three and now your solo band. You also played with the sadly now-departed Ranking Roger in 'Special Beat', what are your memories of him?

A: He was a great on-stage. We were really close, we used to hang around each other’s houses. I was with him three days before he passed away and it was really touching.

Q: Looking back to the way that you started, you really popularised the traditional Jamaican spoken word performance style of Toasting. Do you feel that had an influence on rap becoming mainstream?

A: Yes, toasting certainly became before rap and I was doing it from around 15 in the early 70s. I grew up with West Indian culture and used to go around people's houses and you just made the words up and go and Jerry liked it and that's how I got to join The Specials, because of words.

Q: Your book 'The Original Rude Boy' goes back over the forty years of your career and the many characters that you met along the way, including some surprising ones, like Pete Waterman, who you first met when he was a DJ at the Coventry Locarno.

A: Yes, he wrote the forward for my book. Back then, when he used to DJ, I used to enjoy dancing and there'd be the girls group, I forget their names, and Neville and the boys. We used to dance around the handbags and Pete brought all of us in for a competition in Coventry and I won it. We then went down to London, I don’t remember exactly, but it could've been Crystal Palace. So, I've known Pete for ages. I used to go to his record shop and 'borrow' records. Pete told me later that he knew all along. He's a good character.

Q: You just played a great set here at Rewind, starting with 'Gangsters' with that bit you always do with the reference to Bernie Rhodes (manager of The Clash).

A: Yes, when I do 'Gangsters', I always think back to when I first met Bernie when he used to manage both us and The Clash. It was always the case that "Bernie Rhodes knows: don't argue”. He knew what he was doing, or so we thought at the time.

Q: Coming up to present, you've got a recent album out ('Rude Rebels' on Cleopatra Records) and your wife (Christine Sugary Staple) sings alongside you on stage.

A: Yes, she does. On the album, we've also got Roddy Radiation (original Specials guitarist) playing on a few tracks. It's all new stuff and it's really good. When we do festivals we play just a couple of new ones because the crowd want to hear the old songs

Q: When you play 'A Message To You', there's a strong serious message behind that now, with the death of Fidel Glasgow your grandson a year ago.

A: We're having a peace walk in Coventry for families who've lost loved ones, which my wife set-up. It still hits you. But I tell you what, it's getting worse now. You've got 14 and 15 year olds involved and right now I don't think it's going to get better.

Q: Through the medium of music, you have your new version of 'A Message To You Rudy' called 'Put Away Your Knives' and there's this positivity that comes out of your music, which hopefully people will listen to.

A: Back in The Specials we did that and said what we had to say and what we were feeling. With knife crime, we're trying but I fear that it's going to get worse

Q: What's next for you and the band. Any plans to continue the ‘Forty Years of 2-Tone’ type package tours alongside people like Pauline Black and The Selector ?

A: I've been doing stuff with Roddy and with Jerry (Dammers), but that's as far as it goes. All this year, we're working right round, we're going to Mexico, Venezuela and then coming back to Europe. When people say "when are you going to retire". I say "What's that? I can't retire, I couldn't find another job"

Q: Finally, you had an exhibition recently at the Coventry Music Museum, is that something we might see elsewhere or even down in London ?

A: I don't know yet. It's quite funny because it told my story from Borstal and beyond and there's was one place where you could stand next to a picture of me behind bars. It was a great exhibition. I enjoyed it.

PHOTOS BY: Andy Rawll

http://www.originalrudeboy.co.uk

http://www.nevillestapleband.com

https://cleorecs.com/store/shop/neville-sugary-staple-rude-rebels-cd/

http://www.originalrudeboy.co.uk/live-dates/

VIDEO: ‘Put away your knives’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjAH1sCnf_g

VIDEO: ‘Rebel down’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iR4gCp24-E