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
Jocky 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
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:90rvad5kv8w5 album,
Don't Stand Me Down, featuring Rowland, Adams, O'Hara and Nicky Gatfield together with various seasoned performers including
Vincent Crane (ex-
Atomic Rooster), Julian Littman and Tim Dancy (who had been
Al Green's drummer). Rowland at first refused to issue any singles from the defiantly uncommercial album, and by the time "This Is What She's Like" was released, it was too late to save the album from commercial failure. The group disbanded the following year after a brief return to the charts with the single "Because Of You" (which was used as the theme tune to a
British sitcom, Brush Strokes), and Rowland became a solo singer with the release of
1988's poorly-received album,
The Wanderer. Despite spending much of the
1990s suffering from financial problems and drug addiction, Rowland made plans to reform Dexys together with Big Jim Paterson, although these resulted in no more than a solitary TV performance in
1993. Returning once more as a solo performer, Rowland signed to
Creation Records, releasing an album of cover versions called
My Beauty in
1999, which sold poorly; some sources quote a figure of fewer than 500 copies sold.
http://www.dexys.co.uk/history.htm This was followed by a disastrous appearance at the
Reading festival 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.
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