Dexy's Midnight Runners
On a hot night in July 1978, Kevin Rowland and Kevin Archer set out
to round up a like-minded bunch of men to have a serious crack at the
Big Time. Influenced by Stax, Sam &
Dave, James Brown, Aretha Franklin
and Northern Soul, Dexy's Midnight Runners began rehearsing in a
garage in Northfield, Birmingham. The combination of their big brass
sound and the rhythmic drums, bass and guitar created something
unique.
Summer 1980 was a restless time - Punk was dead,
Ian Curtis had just killed himself and The Rolling Stones and
Queen
topped the album charts. The release of Dexy's debut album,
Searching For The Young Soul Rebels, was an event to be savored.
Resolutely and defiantly, the group had already crossed swords with
EMI and would soon take on the music press.
Their album opened with the twirl of a radio dial
sampling bits of The Sex Pistols and The Specials before Kevin Rowland
sneered "for God's sake, burn it down". What followed was the most
incandescent and refreshing record of the year. An energetic mix of
pop, Northern Soul and punkish attitude.
A re-recorded Dance Stance offered a
searing indictment of anti-Irish racism, the celebratory Geno
had become a chant at every gig, there was an instrumental that
sounded like a film theme and the epistolary There There My Dear
in which Rowland savaged a fashion-conscious contemporary. The closing
words "welcome to the new soul vision" were greeted with joy by many
for whom Dexy's Midnight Runners represented an oasis of passion and
commitment at the beginning of a new decade.
Taking their name from the legendary mod pep pill
'Dexedrine', Kevin Rowland had formed Dexy's in July 1978 to try and
emulate their heroes of the 60s soul scene. Sporting an image
inspired by Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (i.e. New York
Dockers), Dexy's quickly became the toast of the British music press.
 There
was dissension in the ranks however, and the bulk of the band left in
1981 to form The Bureau. With Rowland and Jimmy Patterson the only
remaining original members they bolstered the line-up with new
recruits. The resulting single, Show Me, hit the UK Top 20
later that summer, although a follow-up, Liars A to E, failed
to chart and the group retired to reconsider their approach.
Augmenting the band with The Emerald Express
(fiddlers Helen O'Hara, Steve Brennan and Roger MacDuff) Dexy's
re-emerged in Spring 1982 with a revamped Irish folk/soul hybrid and a
rousing cover version of Van Morrison's Jackie Wilson Said
making the Top 5.
The Celtic Soul Brothers introduced this
new disheveled romantic gypsy vagabond image, and though the track
failed to chart, a follow-up (Come On Eileen) was a massive
transatlantic Number One smash hit. Not only were Dexy's big news in
the UK again, they had cracked America (albeit briefly).
 The
subsequent album, Too-Rye-Ay (1982), was the most successful of
their career, but yet again the line-up splintered and the momentum
faltered with the brass section of Patterson, Maurice and Speare
departing in summer 1982.
It would be a further three years until Dexy's
returned in Brooks Brothers suits for the
release of Don't Stand Me Down, a considerably lower-key effort
which enjoyed only a brief visit to the charts.
A solitary hit single, Because Of You
(used as the theme tune to the UK TV series Brush Strokes)
followed in 1986 before Dexy's were consigned to history. |
