Andre, Louis, an old hotel and a Military Medal

A post that cropped up on one of my social media feeds, gives us the idea for today's story... and it's not entirely music based, but an interesting one nonetheless.

Rhoda Dakar was at the heart of the 2 Tone ska scene of the late 1970s and 80s. She had hits with the all-girl ska band, The Bodysnatchers, who toured with The Selector - and then teamed up with Jerry Dammers in his post The Specials band, handily named The Special AKA. Later on, she released solo work, worked with Madness and also reworked old tunes by The Bodysnatchers with the help of former Specials, Lynval Golding and Horace Panter.

The Bodysnatchers: Do Rocksteady (live in 1980)

But now, we head back to the late 1950s (1959 to be precise), when young Rhoda enters the world, in Hampstead, London. As she notes, "I lived in a poor part of a huge city. London is an amazing place. The underground system means you can go far and wide and find your way round quite easily." Her mother was born in Bristol, but her father, Andre, had been born in Panama before being brought up in Jamaica.

Rudolph 'Andre' Dakar was a colonial child of the Victorian era, and dutifully made his first trip to Britain during World War I, to fight for the motherland as part of the British West Indian Regiment. It seems he ended up fighting in the Middle East, where many were assigned to supporting roles and never received rifles, in the belief that black soldiers did not have the necessary ability to fight. It seems Dakar though, armed only with a sword, did manage to fight with distinction, earning a Military Medal for saving an ammunition dump from destruction.

Andre Dakar Photo: from Rhoda Dakar

He never settled down back in Jamaica and found his way back to Britain - as Rhoda notes, "He arrived in London but left to travel around Europe; France, Belgium, Italy and all the way to Hungary."

In the 1920s, he had apparently married a French speaking Belgian wife, a pianist, and was living in Paris as a musician on the local jazz scene. He wrote lyrics and songs and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker. Rhoda remembers him telling her how much more at home he felt in Paris, than when he was in London; "in France, if you speak French, you're a Frenchman. In England you're just another black man."

But the onset of World War II drove him back to England (he had a British passport). He became a renowned MC at a music night called The Antilles, before running a jazz club in Piccadilly - in the basement of the Regent Palace Hotel.

Regent Palace Hotel in latter days

Regent Palace Hotel: opened in 1915, at the time this was the largest hotel in Europe, with a staggering 1,028 rooms. It had a grand marble entrance and much of its interior was inspired by the grand ocean liners of the time. It was owned by Joe Lyons of the Lyons Tea Shops fame. In the 1930s, it got an art-deco makeover courtesy of Oliver Bernard. The billiard room became the Chez Cup Bar, and from I can tell, it is this that became the jazz club. It received some bomb damage during the Blitz, falling on hard times and from there its standards dropped. But in its heyday, it seems to have been the place to be, as Building Magazine noted in 1935 - "[it's] just a trifle dissipated and naughty, but not sufficiently to be vulgar." The hotel has since been renovated again and is now the home of Brasserie Zedel.

Art Deco interior of the hotel

Dakar's jazz club hosted the Caribbean Club and had its house band, the Ray Ellington Quartet. It was also here that Dakar met Rhoda's mother. During the 50s and 60s, Dakar turned his hand to acting, getting roles in tv staples of the time like The Avengers, and Dangerman, with Patrick McGoohan.

Ray Ellington Quartet: Prelude To A Kiss (audio only)

Rhoda recalls that there was always music in the household when she was growing up. There were many hymns (she attended a church school) and there was, of course, that older jazz that her father listened too. She remembers the particular love for Louis Armstrong; "He was loved in my childhood home, especially by my mum. My dad took her to see him in London before I was born. She didn't believe him when he said he'd take her backstage. She was proved wrong."

Louis Armstrong: Mack The Knife (live in London, 1956 - maybe this was the one her parents were at?)

Rhoda (left) with The Bodysnatchers

And while there was plenty of reggae around, when the family moved to Brixton, she also found herself listening to pretty much all of the genres doing the rounds in the 70s, from the glam of Bowie, through disco, to the early punk bands. She had always sung, but it was her experience in youth theatre that gave her confidence to appear in front of crowds. Mixing with the early punk and 2 Tone scene, she made friends with the likes of Paul Cook, Shane MacGowan and Nicky Summers, with whom she would eventually form The Bodysnatchers.

Rhoda Dakar: What A Wonderful World (official music video)