Soul Salvation - A Gen X Love Letter To The English Beat: Everett Morton

Welcome back to the Ska Boom podcast!  This season is called Soul Salvation and its the companion to my new book “Soul Salvation – A Gen X Love Letter To The English Beat."

Through the book and this podcast I’m telling the story of the Special Beat Service album which embodies both the brilliance and the bittersweet end of the English Beat whose songs served as a soundtrack for thousands of Gen Xers like me.  

The book and this podcast is my tribute to the band’s final, triumphant act – which initially was largely overlooked – and how their music and the love of a young woman changed me forever.

It's my humble opinion that the band's drummer Everett Morton may be one of the best drummers you’ve either never heard of or just don’t know a lot about. And it's always been my mission to change that.  Sadly he passed in late 2021 and has never received the credit he deserves. I think it's fair to say that the English Beat’s identifiable sound has much to do with his drumming style.  

 So what was Morton’s style? It was clearly reggae but initially it was reggae drums that mixed with David Steele’s punky bass lines. So in effect they along with John Bardburry and Horace Panter of The Specials created something completely new and fresh.  It was neither reggae nor punk but a brand-new sound: punky reggae

My new book Soul Salvation : A Gen X Love Letter To The English Beat is now available for pre-sale from DiWulf.com and will be published on August 12th.

The music clips included in this podcast fall under the “Fair Use Doctrine” as defined by Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. The law allows for use of music clips for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.