Chichester's RAJF welcomes Queen of 2-Tone Pauline Black

The Selecter starring Pauline Black & Gaps Hendrickson are among the bands booked up for this year’s Real Ale And Jazz Festival when they will be playing in its entirety the classic 1980 album Too Much Pressure.

Mixing punk, ska and reggae, Too Much Pressure successfully reflected the social and political issues of the early Thatcher years in Britain and gave a voice to disaffected youth across the racial divide.

“It summed up the time,” as Pauline says. “It was 1979 when it was recorded. Margaret Thatcher had just some to power, and there was quite a bit of dissent among the community with recessionary woes and the usual spectre of racism as a way of dividing people.”

Pauline believes there are strong parallels with today. In fact, it was a comment by David Cameron that prompted the new album, Made In Britain which will be released in September and from which they will play the single in Chichester.

“David Cameron said that multiculturalism was dead. He was just so way off beam. Even a cursory glance around you will tell you that multiculturalism is not dead. It motivated us. It made us think that a Selecter album needed to come out. We didn’t want to just rest on our laurels. We felt that this year is our year.”

And a very interesting year for Pauline too. Her 2-Tone memoir Black By Design

will be published by Serpent’s Tail on August 4.

“I took a hiatus from The Selecter between 2006 and 2010 which is when we reformed. We needed a rest. We needed to come off the road and have a rethink. And I wanted to write the book.

“It was surprisingly easy. It sounds a bit disingenuous to say it was terrifically hard! I was approached by a literary agent saying did I want to write one. I said if I did, I wanted to write it myself.

“I was using diaries as my main source and press cuttings where I had them. But really it’s much more about me starting from the fact that I was adopted by a white family. Hence the title Black By Design. The book encapsulated the whole of the 2-Tone years. It goes up to 1996.

“It’s quite surprising in some ways. You surprise yourself with all the things you have done. You are putting it into context. Sometimes your life can seem like you are lurching from one thing to another. One minute you are doing a play; one minute you are presenting something on TV; one minute you are gigging. But when you look back at it all, you see a pattern emerging.”

This year’s line-up for the Real Ale And Jazz Festival in Priory Park is:

The evenings 7-11pm: Friday, July 1 - ASWAD with The Selecter; Saturday, July 2 - Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel with Alvin Stardust as support; Friday, July 8 - The Dictionary Of Soul featuring Sing Baby Sing; and Saturday, July 9 - The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The afternoons 1-5pm: Saturday, July 2 - The Jazz Smugglers with Turnaround; and Saturday, July 9 - King Pie with Turnaround.

Tickets are available on http://www.chichester-rajf.com. The organisers have got tickets they are happy to give away to charities for use as raffle prizes. Get in touch via [email protected]