Terry Hall united black and white just as Stormzy does now. Music needs their ‘better vision’

Terry Hall was always the epitome of cool. That’s really how I always saw him. On tour together in 1979, I was struck by his boundless elegance, a quiet charisma that voiced universal struggles with such depth and care. Now, even in passing, he remains impossibly cool. Terry was subversive to the end. There was no drama diary of his last weeks, no fuss – he went out in style and with pure dignity.

For his fans, his death will come as a tremendous shock, a deep sadness and irreplaceable loss, as it is for all those who knew and loved him. The Specials had a neverending quality that made you feel they could carry on going for ever in different iterations, and Terry was always special – the man with the golden voice. We will remember his prodigious vocals and songwriting talents, but also his unique place in a radical, visionary movement for humanity that still resonates today.

The legacy of 2 Tone is an enduring one. In Coventry, where the movement originated and where Terry grew up, black and white communities always listened to each other’s music. We were our own Motown, Detroit, in the heart of the Midlands – a working-class melting pot of factories, immigration and Caribbean food. Uniting rock, reggae and ska influences with pop and punk reflected what was already going on here, and what all of us stood for: cohesion and humanity. We all believed that united was the only way forward.

The birth of 2 Tone in the shadow of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain marked a cultural paradigm shift in the attitudes of young people towards society, and an awakening to the racism within it, something that continues to reverberate all these decades later.

‘We were bands with one message and look, striking in monochrome. People gravitated towards us.’ The Selecter singer, Pauline Black. Photograph: Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images

It is extraordinary to think that in the 21st century we are still fighting the same fight for equality that Terry championed back then. But global strides forward have been made since. The #MeToo movement couldn’t have existed back in our day, and the Black Lives Matter movement was an enormous step in recognising our continuing social inequalities. Terry was still championing these causes until the end.

He embodied a sort of empathic sadness onstage that spoke to so many people’s suffering, then and now. Men wanted to be him and women wanted to love him. He lent a steely gravitas to lyrics full of suffering and pain – whether he wrote them or not, he always managed to make them his own. He did that with a unique quality – curious yet deadpan and always once-removed. Terry survived childhood abuse and trauma, and I know from personal experience that can make you closed-off to people. His impassive stare onstage allowed the audience to imprint on him whatever they wanted him to be. To me, that’s really what star quality is all about.

Does the star quality that Terry so exuded still exist today? Musicians probably can’t exist today in the way that Terry did. The unity that the Specials embodied doesn’t happen so much now – ego has come back into the music industry in a way that we didn’t experience then. In the pre-digital age, he was his own man – all of us were back then, with our own ideas and fewer forces to rein us in. Today, cultural movements are becoming more and more fragmented.

The Specials – Too Much Too Young

What Terry and the 2 Tone movement had was vision. In an increasingly public world, that responsibility is a lot for young people today to carry. Stormzy does it well – uniting communities and bringing people into his music. But part of what made the 2 Tone movement so powerful and impossible to replicate was our ability to share the load.

On tour with Terry and the Specials in 1979, we were just a group of young musicians, black and white, with a new, frenetic but danceable beat married to socially aware, inclusive lyrics. It was the most fun you could have – like a sixth-form outing with alcohol. But we weathered nefarious influences – frightening experiences of far-right supporters Sieg Heiling in the crowds. Even so, black performers stood shoulder to shoulder with white; we felt unified in our fight. We were bands, including Madness, with one message and look, striking in monochrome. People gravitated towards us. Terry, I think, was single-handedly responsible for getting a generation hooked on Dr Martens and Harringtons. People would sell their soul for the latest shirt from Fred Perry to be part of this lifestyle, an embodiment of a cause.

‘He was unique in what he did’: Terry Hall fronting the Specials in Birmingham in 2017. Photograph: Tony Woolliscroft/WireImage

It’s important not to glorify the past. I wouldn’t make anyone go back to 1979. But there is a difference between the rose-tinted recollections of a “better time” and recognising what was indisputably a “better vision”, which seems to be so lacking in today’s society. At the heart of Terry’s being was the idea of humanity – the thing we all belong to. 2 Tone started important conversations that continue today. Sometimes you just have to talk about issues for a long, long time before you see any change.

I will miss seeing Terry live that message on stage. I will miss seeing him perform. I will miss him, full stop. What an immense, immeasurable loss. There was only one Terry Hall. He was unique in what he did. And he was his own man.