Come on Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners Traditional Cache

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Hidden : 3/15/2010
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Size: Size: small (small)

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Welcome to the World of the "One Hit Woneders"

Searching for the Young Soul Rebels Kevin Rowland (vocals, guitar, at the time going under the pseudonym Carlo Rolan)[1] 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.[1] 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).[1] The song was released on the independent Oddball Records, was named "single of the week" by Sounds,[1] 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). Rowland had been taken to see Washington perform live by his brother when he was aged only eleven.[2] The success of the song prompted Washington to make a return to live performance, and also saw the departure of Leek, who himself cited the "Top of the Pops thing...people wanting your autograph and that just because you are in the band", while Rowland claimed that he left because "he wasn't into soul music and didn't think the band would ever amount to anything".[1] The band at this time dressed in donkey jackets and woolly hats, and had a look described as "straight out of DeNiro's Mean Streets".[1] 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".[1] 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".[2] Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, their debut LP, was released later in 1980. The album's sleeve featured a photograph of a Belfast Catholic boy carrying his belongings after being forced from his home in the sectarian clearances of 1969, the half-Irish Rowland explaining "I wanted a picture of unrest. It could have been from anywhere but I was secretly glad that it was from Ireland".[2] Of the album's title, Rowland said "I don't know...I just liked the sound of it, really".[2] 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, including Rowland's policy of not speaking to the music press (Rowland imposed a press embargo in July 1980, and would instead take out ads in the music papers explaining the band's position).[1] This was a response to some less than complimentary opinions from some music press writers; The NME's Mark Cordery accused the band of "emotional fascism" and described their music as a perversion of soul music with "no tenderness, no sex, no wit, no laughter".[2] Archer eventually formed The Blue Ox Babes, while Blythe, Spooner, Williams, Stoker and Mick Talbot (ex-The 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 a handful of singles in 1980 and 1981, and adopting a new image that included hooded tops, boxing boots, and pony tails.[2] Along with the new look, Rowland brought in a fitness regime, which included working out together and running as a group, Rowland commenting "The togetherness of running along together just gets...that fighting spirit going".[2] The group would also take part in group exercise sessions before performances, and drinking before shows was strictly forbidden.[2] By the time "Plan B" was released, the band were in dispute with EMI, claiming that as their contract option had not been picked up by the company, they were no longer under contract, and they asked, without success, that EMI not release the single.[1] In March 1981, an ad appeared in which Rowland claimed that the previous members of the band had "hatched a plot to throw Kevin out and still carry on under the same name". It also cited Rowland's suggestion that "they might learn new instruments" as a reason for their displeasure.[1] The ad announced that Dexys had been working on a new live venture, "The Midnight Runners Projected Passion Revue".[1] "Show Me" was released in summer 1981 and reached #16 in the UK. It was followed by a session for Richard Skinner's BBC Radio 1 show in which the band previewed tracks that would be reworked later on Too-Rye-Ay.[1] "Liars A to E" was released in October 1981, after which Rowland took the band in a new direction. 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, 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".[1][3][2] Rowland said of the new image: "These are my best clothes. Again it just feels right for the music. Everybody else is dressing up sort of straightlaced and we come in wearing these and it's like, y'know here we are, a bit of hoedowning is even possible".[1] 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

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