Dexys Midnight Runners - Main Releases

Artist Name
Dexys Midnight Runners

(0 users)

Artist Image

Functions

transparent

Data Complete
percent bar

80%

Album Only List refresh

view

2016 - Let The Record Show: Dexys Do Irish and Country Soul

2012 - One Day I'm Going to Soar

1985 - Don't Stand Me Down

1982 - Too-Rye-Ay

1980 - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels

Members
members icon

9 Mixed

Origin
flag

Birmingham, England, UK

Genre
genre icon

Pop

Style
style icon

Rock/Pop

Mood
mood icon

Excitable

Born

born icon 1978

Active
1978 to Present...

Cutout
transparent

Alternate Name
Dexys

Most Loved Tracks
6 users heart off

Dexys Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen
5 users heart off

Dexys Midnight Runners - Geno
4 users heart off

Dexys Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen

youtube icon

Music Video Links

Geno	Come On Eileen	There, There, My Dear
Jackie Wilson Said	Let's Make This Precious

Artist Biography
Available in:

Dexys Midnight Runners (currently called Dexys) are an English pop group with soul influences, who achieved their major success in the early to mid 1980s. They are best known for their songs "Come On Eileen" and "Geno", both of which went No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. 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).
The song was released on the independent Oddball Records, was named "single of the week" by Sounds, and reached 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). At age 11, Rowland had been taken by his brother to see Washington perform live. The success of the song prompted Washington to make a return to live performance, and also saw the departure of Leek, who gave his reasons for leaving as "Really hating being famous all of a sudden... Just because I've been on Top of the Pops doesn't mean I should get any more respect. I didn't want people asking for my autograph all of the time." The band at this time dressed in donkey jackets or leather coats and woolly hats, and had a look described as "straight out of De Niro's Mean Streets". Rowland said of the band's sound and look in January 1980: "we didn't want to become part of anyone else's movement. We'd rather be our own movement". Image was very important to the group, with Rowland commenting "We wanted to be a group that looked like something...a formed group, a project, not just random".