Hailing from Coventry and founded by Jerry Dammers, 2 Tone was responsible for the Ska revival of the late '70s and early '80s. The label enjoyed repeated Chart success from 1979-81 with The Specials - seven Top Ten hits, including a No.1, 'Ghost Town' (CHS TT-17) - and The Selecter. Madness and The Beat both had their first hit record on 2 Tone, before going on to become established Chart acts elsewhere. Sadly, later releases were less successful, and 2 Tone closed down in 1985, after issuing more than thirty singles. Initially numbering was in the TT-0s, TT-1 and TT-2 being the two sides of a split single (1, 3); a link-up with Chrysalis Records led to the adoption of a CHSTT-0 numerical series and the appearance of injection moulded labels on later pressings of the singles (2) - earlier pressings had paper labels. Oddly the injection moulded labels gave the company name as 'Two-Tone', while the paper ones stuck with the original '2 Tone' and also kept the iconic design. The discography below only covers the 1970s; a full discography can be found here.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.