| Dexys Midnight Runners |
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Information AboutDexys Midnight Runners |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS | |
| musical groups established in 1978 | |
| new wave groups | |
| music from birmingham, england | |
| english musical groups | |
| 1980s music groups | |
Dexys Midnight Runners – the name usually spelled without an group with Soul influences, who achieved their major success in the early to mid 1980s . They are best known for their hit " Come On Eileen ". CAREER Kevin Rowland (vocals, guitar) and Kevin "Al" Archer (vocals, guitar) founded the band in 1978 in Birmingham, England , naming the band after Dexedrine, a brand of Dextroamphetamine popularly used as a Recreational Drug among Northern Soul fans at the time. The midnight runners referred to the energy the Dexedrine gave, enabling one to dance all night. "Big" Jim Paterson (trombone), Jeff "JB" Blythe (saxophone), Steve "Babyface" Spooner (alto saxophone), Pete Saunders (keyboard), Pete Williams (bass) and Bobby "Jnr" Ward (drums) formed the first line-up of the band to record a single, "Dance Stance" ( 1979 ). The song was released on the independent Oddball Records , and reached only number 40 in the British charts, but the next single, " Geno " – about Geno Washington , and released on EMI – was a British Number One in 1980 . It featured the band's newest recruits, Andy Leek (keyboards) and Andy "Stoker" Growcott (drums). The band members were disappointed with their share of the profits, and soon stole the master tapes of '' Searching For The Young Soul Rebels '', their debut LP, in order to renegotiate the deal. The album was released later in 1980 and became a massive success. After the next single, "There, There, My Dear", was a hit, Rowland insisted on choosing the uncommercial "Keep It Part Two (Inferiority Part One)" for the following single. It was a failure, and most of the band members quit, angered over continual personality problems with Rowland. Archer eventually formed The Blue Ox Babes , while Blythe, Spooner, Williams, Stoker and Mick Talbot (ex- Merton Parkas , who had recently joined on keyboards) left to form The Bureau . Paterson stayed with Rowland, who added Billy Adams (guitar/banjo), Seb Shelton (drums, formerly of Secret Affair ), Micky Billingham (keyboard), Brian Maurice (alto saxophone), Paul Speare (tenor saxophone) and Steve Wynne (bass), releasing "Plan B", "Show Me" (this line-up's only Top 40 hit) and "Liars A to E" in 1981 without much success. Rowland then recruited fiddle players Helen O'Hara (from Archer's new group, the Blue Ox Babes), Steve Brennan and Roger MacDuff, known collectively as "The Emerald Express". With the addition of new bass player, Giorgio Kilkenny, this line-up recorded '' Too-Rye-Ay '' in 1982 , a hybrid of soul and Celtic folk. The first single, "The Celtic Soul Brothers", was mildly successful but " Come On Eileen " soon followed, and became a Number One hit in both the UK and the United States (and, in the former, the biggest-selling single of 1982). The follow-up " Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile) ", a cover of a Van Morrison tune, also reached the top 5 in the UK singles chart. The band sang this song on the UK comedy The Young Ones . When the band performed this single on the BBC TV music show Top Of The Pops, which was broadcast live, there was an infamous mix-up (or deliberate prank) by the BBC engineers in charge of the background graphics. Instead of a picture of Jackie Wilson, the American soul singer, the band performed in front of a photo of Jockey Wilson, the British darts player. Feeling that their role in the group had diminished following the arrival of the fiddles, the brass section of Paterson, Speare and Maurice left to form The TKO Horns and recorded an album in 1985 with Howard Jones , while Kilkenny was replaced by Johnny Edwards on bass and Billingham left to join General Public . The group continued to tour until 1983 with a nucleus of Rowland, Adams, O'Hara and Shelton augmented by other musicians. After a two-year break, Dexys returned in 1985 with the critically panned album, '' where Rowland was bottled off by a hostile crowd after introducing two strippers who had accompanied him. [http://www.creation-records.com/html/1983to2000.html The demise of Creation Records meant that the planned follow-up album, which would have featured Dexys, was never made. In April 2003 , the group announced that they would be reuniting for a tour. A greatest hits album, ''Let's Make This Precious,'' was released in September 2003, and a successful tour took place in October and November of the same year. Two newly recorded songs, "Manhood" and "My Life in England," appeared on the album and were touted as new singles. Despite airplay on national radio, neither was officially released as a commercial single. During a June 2005 interview on BBC Radio 2 , Kevin Rowland announced that Dexys were "back in the studio" and seeking a record deal for a new album. IN THE MEDIA
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DISCOGRAPHY Singles
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