The Colourfield Artistfacts

1984-1987
Terry HallVocals, guitar1984-1987
Toby LyonsGuitar, organ1984-1987
Karl ShaleBass!984-1986
Gary DwyerDrums1986
The Colourfield - also credited on some releases as The Colour Field - took their name from Colour Field painting - a strand of American abstract art that emerged in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. Painters like Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis were its key figures, creating large-scale canvases that used broad expanses of flat, saturated colour to evoke mood and feeling. It was an apt choice for a group whose sound - lush, melodic, and emotionally expansive - deliberately moved away from the angular minimalism of Terry Hall's previous bands, The Specials and Fun Boy Three.
All three members of The Colourfield (Terry Hall, Toby Lyons, and Karl Shale) were from Coventry, yet the band made their base in Manchester. Lyons and Shale had both been members of the Coventry 2 Tone group The Swinging Cats and had already crossed paths with Hall when they played on tour with Fun Boy Three. Hall formed the group in late 1983 after disbanding Fun Boy Three at their commercial peak, determined to make something quieter, more melodic, and entirely different.
The Colourfield's sole Top 20 hit was "Thinking Of You," which climbed to #12 in the UK and #11 in Ireland. The track pairs an upbeat, Latin-inflected rhythm with a lyric of pure unrequited longing. Yet despite the single's success, its parent album, Virgins and Philistines, stalled on the charts. Chrysalis Records simply didn't know how to market its eclectic sound, a delicate blend of '60s pop hooks, acoustic melodies and lush string arrangements. While it baffled the label in 1985, the album has since been vindicated as a blueprint for the breezy '90s indie-pop perfected by bands like The Beautiful South and The Lightning Seeds.
The recording of their second album in 1987, Deception, was troubled from the outset. Karl Shale had already left the band before sessions began, and Toby Lyons departed midway through the process. This left Terry Hall to finish the record alone, eventually leading him to hire the touring band of American actress and cabaret entertainer Raquel Welch as his session musicians. The album includes several notable guest contributors, including Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears, who played guitar on "Running Away" and "Confessions," alongside a then little known Sinéad O'Connor, who provided lead vocals on the B-side "Monkey in Winter."
After The Colourfield dissolved in 1987, the three members took very different paths. Hall launched a string of new projects - Terry, Blair & Anouchka (with actress Blair Booth and jeweller Anouchka Groce), a collaboration with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics under the name Vegas, four solo albums, and guest spots with Gorillaz, Tricky, and the Lightning Seeds, before eventually rejoining the Specials for a reunion tour in 2009. Toby Lyons moved into education and became a lecturer and tutor in graphic design at Sheffield Hallam University in South Yorkshire. Karl Shale joined Candyskins, an Oxford-based indie band, and after they broke up worked in a record shop.
Terry Hall died on December 18, 2022, from pancreatic cancer, aged 63. The news prompted an outpouring of tributes from across British music, reflecting his unique place in the country's pop history - from the ska revival of the Specials to the melancholy chamber pop of the Colourfield. In 2026, a new Colourfield compilation, Sound of The Colourfield, was released on Chrysalis Records.

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