Singer at the forefront of two-tone

Born: February 21, 1963;

Died: March 26, 2019

RANKING Roger, born Roger Charlery, who has died aged 56, was a British vocalist who was known for playing reggae, ska and two-tone amid the punk-era revival of the sound in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. He was most famous for his work with the Birmingham-based ska revivalists The Beat, who had five top ten British hits, including Mirror in the Bathroom and the cover of Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown.

A sound born of the children of black British migrants from the Caribbean and West Indies,and the anti-racist, multi-cultural inner city ethos of punk, the two-tone genre was given the name precisely because of how the bands looked. With both black and white members, their style and sound was the result of two cultures blending to create something new, and the Beat were at the forefront of the movement alongside groups like the Specials.

The Beat were born, in 1978, into a politically-charged era, and the arrival of Margaret Thatcher the following year only made the atmosphere in the country more charged. Although it was not the song the group were most famous for, The Beat’s most controversial moment came with the release of Stand Down Margaret in 1982, the double A-side of Best Friend, which was banned by BBC Radio for its clear goading of the then-Prime Minister.

Yet it was not intended to be an aggressive song, as The Beat’s other vocalist Dave Wakeling once said in interview. “We wanted the song to be happy,” he explained. “We were sick of (Thatcher) making people miserable and we were sick, frankly, of so many miserable sentiments and songs and attitudes in opposition to her. So we wanted a protest song that was full of life and wordplay.”

The Beat made exciting, celebratory, foot-skipping music, but their legacy was bound with the politics of their times. . Tears of a Clown was a poppily upbeat exhortation to enjoy the moment; Mirror in the Bathroom coasted on a fraught, dramatic tension; and the Andy Williams cover Can’t Get Used to Losing You, a hit in 1983, was breezily, soulfully romantic. Mainly only a success in the UK, the Beat’s first two albums I Just Can’t Help It (1980) and Wha’ppen? (1981) were top three hits, although 1982’s Special Beat Service failed to break the Top 20.

When the Beat split in 1983, Roger and Wakeling went on to form General Public with Horace Panter of the Specials and Mick Jones of the Clash, whose biggest success came in North America with the single Tenderness, a top 40 hit after it was used in the John Hughes film Sixteen Candles. They split in 1987, reforming for a short while seven years later, and Roger released his debut solo album Radical Departure in 1988 and the more electronic follow-up Inside My Head in 2001.

Throughout later life, Roger played live shows with members of the Specials as the Special Beat, and recorded and played live with Sting and the Police, reggae artist Pato Banton, and with Mick Jones’ Big Audio Dynamite. The Beat reformed briefly in 2003, and in 2006 Roger re-established them permanently, albeit without Wakeling, who formed his own branch of the band. They continued to tour, and in 2016 released the album Bounce; by this point the band included Roger’s son Matthew, under the name Ranking Junior.

Ranking Roger was born Roger Charlery in Birmingham in 1963, the son of immigrants from the island of Saint Lucia in the West Indies – father Jean Baptiste and mother Anne Marie – who came to the UK in order to find work. His father had been a skilled saxophone player, yet he put aside any ambitions he may have had to play when he came to Britain. Roger learned the vocal toasting style at school, and at 16, he says, he was “one of Birmingham’s first black punks”. Joining local group the Dum Dum Boys, he was invited onstage by the Beat to toast before becoming an official member.

Towards the end of 2018 Roger suffered a stroke, and – with a new Beat album and his autobiography reportedly complete – his health never recovered. “Our kids’ generation still has a lot to deal with,” the father of five once said in interview. “Where there is racism, the Beat needs to be there because our main message was always peace and unity, and we’re still striving for that. Music can get through where politics can’t.”

DAVID POLLOCK