the jam
 Paul
Weller and Rick Buckler met at school in Woking, Surrey, in 1975
and played music together during their lunch hours. The pair
joined up with Bruce Foxton and Steve Brookes to play local pubs
and clubs but Brookes soon quit, leaving the band as a trio.
The Jam signed to Polydor in 1977 for £6,000 and their first
album In The City went Top 20 in the UK. Although initially
regarded as part of the punk scene, the
band's mohair suits, skinny ties and neat haircuts soon sparked a Mod
Revival.
Bizarrely, 1978 found The Jam supporting Blue
Öyster Cult on a US tour, but it was in 1979 that the group
began to make its reputation as Britain's best songsmiths.
Their
supremacy was revealed in the band's fourth album, Setting Sons,
on which the anthemic Eton Rifles concisely articulated the
class war with which Weller now seemed obsessed. The album went to
Number 4 in the UK (Number 137 in the USA).
 In
March 1980, while touring in Texas, the band learned that their
next single, Going Underground, had entered the UK chart at
Number 1. Polydor jumped on the song's success and re-released six
of The Jam's earlier singles, all of which charted for a second
time.
The next new single, Start!, which followed Going
Underground to Number 1 in September 1980, sailed pretty close
to The Beatles' Taxman but, to be
fair, Weller always admitted to practising the ultimate form of
flattery.
With yet another UK and European tour on the horizon, The Jam
put out a fifth album - Sound Affects (1981). This was a
funkier work than anything previously attempted and contained
Weller's magnum opus That's Entertainment.
 A
quieter period followed in 1981, though the singles Funeral
Pyre and Absolute Beginners both reached Number 4 in
the UK, and the year ended with The Jam winning just about every
award in the NME poll for the second successive year.
In 1982 the band returned to Number 1 in the UK singles chart
with the chunky bass-driven Town Called Malice. The track
graced The Gift - an album that had a warm, 'live'
rock/soul sound and sourced its rhythms from black music styles
like calypso and Motown.
The Gift was promoted by a tour complete with backing
singers and a brass section, but that was to be the end of the
line: Foxton and Buckler were informed by Weller in June 1982 that
he was leaving the group.
 Appropriately
the next single released was the intentionally trite love song The
Bitterest Pill. A lengthy farewell tour followed, and The
Jam's final single, Beat Surrender, entered the UK chart at
Number 1, coinciding with the band's emotional last gig at The
Brighton Centre on December 12.
Obliged by Polydor for one further album, The Jam provided Dig
the New Breed, a live anthology which didn't quite capture
their power and intensity. Polydor also re-released all thirteen
Jam singles, which in a remarkable feat reached the UK Top 100
simultaneously.
 A
greatest hits package, Snap, served as conclusive proof of
the band's consistent quality over seven years.
Weller almost immediately formed The
Style Council with ex-Merton Parkas
keyboard player Mick Talbot, who had earlier joined The Jam on
tour.
Bruce Foxton released a single inspired by the life of the
Elephant Man, called Freak, and a solo album before ending
up with fading punks Stiff Little
Fingers.
Rick Buckler attempted to continue a musical career with Time
UK before running a studio and finally his own furniture
restoration business.
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