BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Description: Band, UK
Known For: “Come on Eileen” 1983
Music Styles: Pop/Rock
Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom
CONTACT DETAILS
Web Site:Dexys official website
Other Links: See below:
YOUTUBE VIDEO
BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
Dexys Midnight Runners
A British pop group with soul influences, who achieved their major success in the early to mid-1980s. They are best known for their hits “Come on Eileen” and “Geno”.
Kevin Rowland (vocals, guitar, at the time going under the pseudonym Carlo Rolan) and Kevin “Al” Archer (vocals, guitar), both previously of The Killjoys, 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), Geoff “JB” Blythe (saxophone, previously of Geno Washington’s Ram Jam Band), 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).
Leader Kevin RolandRowland 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, with strong influences from the music of Van Morrison, the new sound accompanied by a new look, with the band attired in dungarees, scarves, leather waistcoats, and what was described as “a generally scruffy right-off-the-farm look”, or “a raggle-taggle mixture of gypsy, rural Irish and Steinbeck Okie”.
Born August 17,1953 Wolver Hampton, England.
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.
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.
Members included.
Kevin Rowland
Former members.
Billy Adams
Al Archer
Mickey Billingham
Jeff Blythe
Steve Brennan
Vincent Crane
Andy “Stoker” Growcott
John “Rhino” Edwards
Giorgio Kilkenny
Andy Leek
Robert Noble
Helen O’Hara
Jimmy Paterson
Peter Saunders
Seb Shelton
Paul Speare
Steve Spooner
Mick Talbot
Simon Walker
Pete Williams
Steve Wynn
LINKS:
- Sean Michaels. “Dexys Midnight Runners to release first new album in 27 years | Music”
. theguardian.com. Retrieved 2014-04-17.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Gimarc, George (2005) Punk Diary: The Ultimate Trainspotter’s Guide to Underground Rock 1970–1982, Backbeat Books, ISBN 0-87930-848-6
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Reynolds, Simon (2005) Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984, Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-21570-X, p. 293–296
- Jump up ^ Record Mirror, 10 May 1980
- Jump up ^ Raggett, Ned “Too-Rye-Ay Review
“, AllMusic, Macrovision Corporation