Neville Staple, a former member of The Specials and the Fun Boy Three was 70 last week.

Born in Jamaica and moved to Rugby in the UK before moving again to a more permanent home in Coventry when he was five. He joined The Special AKA when they formed in 1977 and his style of singing was called toasting and was a forerunner to rapping.

When the Specials (as they became) split, he, Terry Hall and Lynval Golding formed the Fun Boy Three and charted eight hits in the two years they were together including two top five hit duets with Bananarama. He formed his own Neville Staple band and recorded and toured until January 2024 when he announced that he had a serious heart defect and thus cancelled all live events for the foreseeable future. Let’s remember the Fun Boy Three’s debut hit from 1981.