2 Tone Legacy - The Untold Story of The Beat Girl

Welcome to 2 Tone Legacy a special 10-part audio documentary series of the Ska Boom podcast that focuses on the stories behind the songs that contribute to the enduring legacy of 2 Tone music and its ongoing impact on popular culture. 

When it came time for The English Beat to create a logo for their first album and for marketing posters and advertisements they called upon Hunt Emerson who is a noted British cartoonist and comic book artist.  Emerson drew the Beat Girl from an original photo of a woman dancing with Prince Buster in the early 1960s that he saw in the Melody Maker in May 1979. 

Until now, the identity of the Beat Girl has been a mystery. But my guest Joanna Wallace has done some amazing research and online detective work to identify who the Beat girl is and to tell her fantastic and cinematic story.  Watch the documentary here.

Ska Boom is hosted/produced by Marc Wasserman and co-produced/engineered by Rob George. Ska Boom is the audio companion to my book Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Oral History available from DiWulf Publishing and Amazon.  

The music clips included in this podcast fall under the “Fair Use Doctrine” as defined by Section 107 of the Copyright Act. The law allows for use of music clips for purposes of criticism, comment, and news reporting