Jerry Dammers / Ivor Novello inspiration award (22/05/14)

Legendary keyboard player picks up one of music industry's most prized awards - and dedicates it to his mum

Legendary Specials songwriter Jerry Dammers has been named a music industry inspiration at a major awards ceremony.

The founding member of the Coventry 2-Tone group picked up the inspiration award at the 59th Ivor Novello Awards in London.

It came three decades after his song, Nelson Mandela, stormed the charts calling for the release of the anti-apartheid campaigner.

Dammers scored a top 10 hit with the track performed by Special AKA.

The song became an anti-apartheid anthem and Mr Mandela, who died in December, was eventually released in 1990.

The annual awards, known as The Ivors, are presented by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and are highly prized because they are voted for by songwriters and composers.

Dammers was presented with his award by former Clash guitarist Mick Jones, who described him as “the Tsar of Ska”.

Dammers - who no longer performs with the reformed Specials - revealed that he had almost missed the ceremony because his mother is ill, and dedicated his win to her.

Speaking backstage, the Ghost Town songwriter said he thought the idea of protest music was still thriving.

“I don’t think protest music necessarily has to have lyrics even,” he said. “You can have instrumental protest music, you know - jungle, dub-step, all of those are kind of abstract but still protest music like jazz was before.”

The Spatial AKA Orchestra / Nelson Mandela (Channel 4 News)

The Specials founding member Jerry Dammers has paid tribute to Nelson Mandela with a unique instrumental performance of his 1984 track, Free Nelson Mandela. The song, originally performed by The Special AKA, became a rallying call for the global movement demanding Mandela's release from prison, which was granted in 1990 amid civil unrest in his native South Africa.

Dammers gathered his current ensemble, the Spatial AKA Orchestra, to perform a special rendition of the track on Britain's Channel 4 news on Friday night, a day after the political hero passed away at the age of 95.

Writing in the Daily Mirror newspaper following Mandela's death on Thursday night, Dammers stated, "I hope Free Nelson Mandela is still a rallying cry and people can relate to what it stood for, because one of the best ways we could remember Nelson Mandela is to listen to what he actually said.

A lot of politicians are going to pay tribute to him, but if they actually listened to what he said, about freeing people from the prison of poverty, and acted on it, that would be the best tribute of all." The civil rights icon served 27 years in prison after he was convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government following a sabotage campaign calling for an end to apartheid.



Nelson Mandela

1918 - 2013