Rico's Music > The Selecter

The Selecter

formed in Coventry, 1979, split in 1981
reformed in 1990

Rico helped The Selecter at least on one track "Carry Go Bring Come" for their debut LP Too Much Pressure. During the 1990s he was asked by the reformed band to play on their comeback called Happy Album

"The Selecter" was a song written in 1977 by Neol Davies and John Bradbury which was released as a double A-sided single with The Special's "Gangsters". It was the beginning of the legendary 2Tone label and a new facette in the punk /new wave music scene.

The Selecter as a band was formed in 1979 with:

Neol Davies (g)
Pauline Black (voc)
Charley Anderson (b)
Charlie 'H' Bembridge (dr)
Compton Amanor (g)
Arthur 'Gaps' Hendrickson (voc)
Desmond Brown (hammond, keyb)

After the failure of Celebrate The Bullet the band stopped playing until Pauline Black and Neol Davies were asked by Bad Manners to guest on a live performance in 1991 and finally wrote and recorded new songs for The Happy Album.

In 1999 the band had the following line-up:

Pauline Black (voc)
Nick Welsh (b)
Martin Stewart (keyb)
Paul Seacroft (g)
Al Fletcher (dr)
Dave Barker (voc)

More on the story has been writtem by Pauline Black for The Blackroom (see link below).

Selected Discography

1979:

Too Much Pressure (LP: Two Tone)

1980:

Celebrate The Bullet (LP: Chrysalis)

1994:

The Happy Album (LP: TripleX)

Bibliography/Links

WebSites:

The Selecter by Mick Sleeper

URL: http://www.incentre.net/sleeper/selecter.htm

Mick Sleeper is the maker of the most important Lee Perry site and started to produce somesthing similair on The Selecter. The sides are off the web since quite a long time but annonced for a relaunch in Spring 2002 on his upsetter.net site.Nothing happened there until now (Jan. 2004).

The Selecter

URL: http://2-tone.info

This site has nearly complete information on the 2Tone label and its bands. The Selecter are well represented.

The Blackroom - The Coventry Music Scene by Pauline Black

URL: http://www.cwn.org.uk/blackroom

1999 Pauline Black presented a summary of Selecter's band history:

The Blackroom - The Story of 2-Tone and The Selecter by Pauline Black, on 1 March 1999

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Last updated: 12. Jan. 2004
compiled by Reinhard Braun