Rhoda Dakar @ The Great Northern Ska Festival

Rhoda Dakar

Bowlers Exhibition Centre, Manchester, GB

£25.00 + £2.75 booking fee
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Rhoda Dakar began her musical career as lead vocalist with all female 2 Tone band, The Bodysnatchers. They only ever released two singles, 'Let's Do Rocksteady' and 'Easy Life'. After a year together they split and Rhoda went on to guest with The Specials in Europe and the USA, having featured on their second album, 'More Specials'. After their demise, and before joining Jerry Dammers' new project, she recorded The Bodysnatchers' first original song, 'The Boiler', a harrowing tale of date rape, which was inevitably banned. The Special AKA spent the next two years recording 'In The Studio', spawning a top ten hit with 'Free Nelson Mandela'. Disillusioned, Rhoda left the music business, only returning occasionally to guest with friends like Dr Robert, The Communards and Apollo 440.

In the early noughties, Rhoda was enticed back by the opportunity to work with both Pauline Black of The Selecter and Jennie Matthias of The Bellestars. Though the project was short-lived, she was back on the road and soon began writing and recording again. In 2006, Rhoda released her first solo album, the semi acoustic 'Cleaning In Another Woman's Kitchen', followed in 2009 by 'Back To The Garage', an old school Garage Rock album with collaborator Nick Welsh. In the meantime, she was featured on Madness' brilliant 'Liberty Of Norton Folgate' album, duetting 'On The Town'. Rhoda has appeared with them from time to time in venues as varied as Newmarket racecourse, London's O2 Arena in Greenwich and the House Of Fun weekender in Butlins Minehead. Five years after recording the album, Rhoda finally got to play a set featuring songs from 'Back To The Garage' at Blackpool's famed Rebellion Punk Festival, with longtime friend Tony Feedback, aka Tony Perfect, guitars turned up to eleven!

The most recent release, is what has been hailed as "the lost 2Tone album", 'Rhoda Dakar sings The Bodysnatchers', including many previously unrecorded tracks. It was crowd funded through Pledgemusic, reaching the target in just 16 days! Featuring old friends from The Specials, Horace Panter and Lynval Golding, plus the cream of current Ska scene musicians. It was launched on Halloween 2014 at London's Jazz Café to the delight of many fans from back in the day. Rhoda has promised to do a few more shows featuring Bodysnatchers material.

Rhoda has a neat sideline in writing sleeve notes and has curated a brace of compilation albums, 'Ska Madness' volumes 1 and 2. Having first trod the boards at the end of the Sixties, she now draws on her considerable experience to teach vocals and performance to some very talented young people. However, her most recent divergence was hosting the Literary Stage at 2014's Rebellion Festival!

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