![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/dave_wakeling.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhen The English Beat hit the UK music scene in late \u201870s England, the Birmingham group found a huge audience for its brand of 2-tone\/ska with elements of punk, reggae, pop, jazz and soul. Though the band took a quarter-century pause, today the band\u2019s founding songwriter and left-handed guitarist Dave Wakeling leads a popular touring lineup.<\/p>\n
The English Beat was part of a ska wave that ruled the UK pop charts for a time. That movement included other bands like the Selecter and The Specials. The latter group\u2019s lead singer, Terry Hall died of pancreatic cancer in late 2022. Wakeling has fond memories of his friend. \u201cHe was always very droll and guarded, but kind,\u201d he recalls. \u201cTerry always wanted to know how you were doing \u2013 if you were okay \u2013 which made you wonder if he<\/i> was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wakeling is decidedly okay; he has earned his share of praise from well-known and highly respected artists. The Who\u2019s Pete Townshend famously featured \u201cSave it for Later\u201d in live sets with his side-project supergroup, Deep End. Townshend\u2019s cover of the English Beat hit was included on the 1986 LP Deep End Live!<\/i>, and again on Live: Brixton Academy \u201885<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wakeling jokes about the recognition, but it\u2019s clear that Townshend\u2019s nod means more to him than an occasional royalty cheque. \u201cYou love the money, and you love the fast cars,\u201d he quips. \u201cBut having your hero from when you were a kid say that your song means a lot to him is absolutely priceless.\u201d Towshend went so far as to phone Wakeling to ask for tips on the song\u2019s unusual guitar tuning (DADAAD for those keeping track). And after adding the song to his set, Townshend invited Wakeling to a show.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe invited me down to The Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles,\u201d Wakeling recalls. \u201cIt was only a short meeting, but he said, \u2018Songwriters, Dave: They’re the luckiest people in the world. It just doesn’t always seem that way.\u2019\u201d Wakeling laughs as he admits that while he appreciated the sentiments expressed, he didn\u2019t quite know what Townshend meant. Decades later, he\u2019s still mulling it over. But he\u2019s sure it\u2019s a weighty observation. \u201cBecause,\u201d he explains with a sly grin, the Who guitarist\/songwriter \u201ccould see for miles and miles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elvis Costello is a fan as well; he has covered the Engish Beat\u2019s danceable anti-Thatcher tune \u201cStand Down Margaret\u201d in concert. \u201cThat meant the absolute world to me,\u201d Wakeling says, adding that another big name expressed his admiration in a public way as well. \u201cSting used to wear a Beat t-shirt all the time,\u201d he says. \u201cWe got a nod and a wink, for which I was very grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wakeling was deeply moved by those high-profile expressions of support for his creative endeavors. \u201cTo do anything that meant anything to your heroes is enough, really,\u201d he says. \u201cI could go back to gardening!\u201d<\/p>\n
And in fact he has done that, to some extent. While The English Beat\u2019s lyrics often took aim at what Wakeling and his bandmates saw as societal injustice and political misdeeds, he says that these days he makes a point of trying to steer clear of courting controversy on social media. \u201cThe last time I did anything overt was to support Obama\u2019s presidency,\u201d says the 35-year U.S. resident.<\/p>\n
Instead, during the pandemic Wakeling launched a popular series on Facebook he calls Skardening Sunday. \u201cI shared photographs of different areas of my rose garden here in Woodland Hills, and invited people to send their favorite photographs of their garden,\u201d he says. \u201cIt became very good; we got a few fans and responses.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not as if Wakeling has turned his attention away from music. After The English Beat ended its original run in 1983, he quickly re-emerged with a new group, General Public. In the 21st<\/sup> century, he revived the band with a U.S.-based lineup. A highly-regarded album, Here We Go Love!<\/i> Was released in 2018.<\/p>\n The band includes some of the most recent album\u2019s songs in its live set. \u201cI\u2019ve been playing \u2018How Can You Stand There?\u2019 because not only does it go down well as a new one, but it fits in well to the first Beat album\u2019s uptempo ska model,\u201d Wakeling says. But he recognizes that most concertgoers are there for the classics.<\/p>\n Our fans are very tolerant,\u201d he says with a self-effacing laugh. \u201cBut you have to be careful. If you play more than a couple that aren’t immediately recognizable, [they\u2019ll say] \u2018Hey, I’m going to run to the bathroom!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Still, many of Wakeling\u2019s newer songs work seamlessly in a set alongside \u201cMirror in the Bathroom\u201d and \u201cThe Tears of a Clown.\u201d He recalls a Punk Rock Bowling gig from not long ago. \u201cWe just played everything from our albums that was over 130 beats per minute,\u201d he says with a hearty laugh. And the audience responded in kind. \u201cPeople were saying, \u2018Oh, they still are punks!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Wakeling is proud of his band\u2019s approach of starting with reggae\/ska roots and adding other textures and style influences to make something fresh and new. \u201cIf you had a whole band making it sound like it was Kingston Town in 1964, then you\u2019d be better off playing in Kingston Town in 1964. We make it sound like it\u2019s Menlo Park in 2023!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When The English Beat hit the UK music scene in late \u201870s England, the Birmingham group found a huge audience for its brand of 2-tone\/ska with elements of punk, reggae, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,68],"tags":[2781,5053,5054],"class_list":["post-24728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-ska","tag-dave-wakeling","tag-the-beat","tag-the-english-beat","cat-41-id","cat-68-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24730,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24728\/revisions\/24730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}