Dexys Midnight Runners

Dexys
Dexys at Cambridge Corn Exchange in 2012
Background information
Also known as	Dexys Midnight Runners The Emerald Express
Origin	Birmingham, West Midlands, England
Genres	Pop, new wave, soul, Celtic folk, rock
Years active	1978–1986, 2003–present
Labels	Oddball EMI Mercury BMG Windsong Absolute Dexys 100% / Warner Music
Associated acts	The Killjoys The Bureau The Blue Ox Babes The TKO Horns
Website	www.dexysonline.com
Members	Kevin Rowland Lucy Morgan Sean Read Michael Timothy Andy Hobson Billy Stookes Mark Kavuma
Past members	Former members

Dexys (originally called Dexys Midnight Runners) are an English pop band with soul influences, who achieved their major success in the early to mid-1980s. They are best known in the UK for their songs "Come On Eileen" and "Geno", both of which peaked at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, as well as six other top-20 singles.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dexys went through numerous personnel changes over the course of three albums and thirteen singles, with only singer/songwriter/co-founder Kevin Rowland remaining in the band through all of the transitions and only Rowland and "Big" Jim Paterson (trombone) appearing on all of the albums. By 1983, the band consisted only of Rowland and long-standing members Helen O'Hara (violin) and Billy Adams (guitar). The band broke up in 1987, with Rowland becoming a solo artist. After two failed restart attempts, Dexys was reformed by Rowland in 2003 with new members, as well as a few returning members from the band's original lineup (known as Dexys Mark I). Dexys released their fourth album in 2012 and a fifth followed in 2016.

After the breakup of their previous band the Killjoys, Kevin Rowland (vocals, guitar, at the time going under the pseudonym Carlo Rolan) and Kevin "Al" Archer (vocals, guitar) founded the band in 1978 in Birmingham, England. Rowland had previously written a Northern Soul-style song that the two of them sang, "Tell Me When My Light Turns Green", which became the first Dexys "song", and they then named 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. While recruiting members for the new band, Rowland noted that "Anyone joining Dexys had to give up their job and rehearse all day long. . . . We had nothing to lose and felt that what we were doing was everything." "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 John Jay (drums) formed the first line-up of the band, which began playing live at the end of 1978.