FEATURE:
The Digital Mixtape
PHOTO CREDIT: black door agency
Kevin Rowland at Seventy: His Best Solo and Dexys/Dexys Midnight Runners Tracks
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A big music birthday….
that almost passed me by is Kevin Rowland’s upcoming seventieth. The Wolverhampton-born singer-songwriter is the lead of the terrific Dexys (formerly Dexys Midnight Runners). The band formed in Birmingham. Best known for hits such as Geno and Come on Eileen, they are responsible for more than a few classics! Rowland himself has released two solo albums - 1988’s The Wanderer and 1999’s My Beauty. Dexys released the phenomenal The Feminine Divine on 28th July. It ranks alongside the best work from Rowland. Written with bandmates Sean Read, Mike Timothy and Jim Paterson, it goes to show that there is still plenty of life in this hugely influential band. Kevin Rowland turns seventy on 17th August. I am going to celebrate that with a playlist featuring some his best solo work, together with a selection of Dexys/Dexys Midnight Runners tracks. Before then, I wanted to bring in a recent interview from The Big Takeover, where where Rowlands talked about The Feminine Divine and Dexys hitting the road:
“Not too many bands can claim to have a multi-generational hit and most would take that even if it meant being labeled as a “one-hit wonder.” You’d be hard pressed to find even the most casual music listener who hasn’t heard, and sung along with, Dexys Midnight Runners’ 1982 international chart-topper “Come On Eileen” from the Too Rye Ay album. When I tell founding member and lead singer Kevin Rowland that not only is the song one of my favorites, but also a favorite of my mom, my wife, and my kids, he rightfully asks, “Is that the only Dexys song you know?” Were it not for streaming services like Spotify and YouTube, I may have answered “Yes,” but, thankfully, all of Rowland’s recorded history – from Dexys Midnight Runners to the shortened Dexys to his solo material – is readily available and worth exploring if you only know the hit. While nothing will ever come close to matching the success of “Come On Eileen,” albums like Dexys Midnight Runners’ 1995’s Don’t Stand Me Down and Rowland’s 1999 My Beauty contain some treats.
The first collection of new Dexys songs since 2012’s One Day I’m Going to Soar has just been released. The Feminine Divine is a personal narrative for Rowland, one that tells the story of a man who grew up embossed in a masculinity culture that believed it was a man’s job to protect women only to discover, later in life, that women can protect themselves and don’t benefit from a machismo attitude. By the end of Rowland’s journey, he drops the tough guy persona and comes to realize that women are goddesses that he can submit to and learn from.
The Dexys name seems to be out there a lot surrounding the release of this album. Is that something that you’re noticing?
KEVIN: I think the label is doing a really good job, I have to say. They’re really pushing the album. They’re working it, they believe in it. I’m very happy about that. I think there seems to be a buzz.
With the new album, lyrically, you tackle a lot, but the first time I listened to it, the first couple songs really made me a smile. There’s a very bright sound to the music. And the second half of the album is just a little bit darker. It’s almost like the first half is daytime, the second half is nighttime.
KEVIN: I’ve never thought about that. That’s so good to hear because I’m a massive Beach Boys fan and I always loved how their songs sounded so sunny. I feel “Eileen” did sound quite sunny. And we’ve always sort of wanted to do that, really have songs that sound good in the summer.
You’re a very fashionable gentleman. Did your music career help you get free clothes? Was that a perk when you were starting out?
KEVIN: Not really, but I do find it to be a perk more these days. I’m sort of known as somebody who wears clothes and is into clothes, and very fortunately, there’s a guy from LVC called Paul O’Neill. He’s a really nice guy, and he likes Dexys. When I went over there to California last time, he just met me and took me to LVC, which is Levi’s vintage company, all the really old reproductions, but they’re so well made, and he just went, “Would you like this? Would you like this?”
You’ve mentioned that you’re not interested in being part of any ’80s nostalgia touring package, that you’re going to headline and put on performances, not just concerts.
KEVIN: We’re going to do theatres and the show will be in two parts. First, it’s going to be The Feminine Divine performed live in sequence, the whole album. We’re going to perform it theatrically. We’re going to act the songs out. We’ve got a goddess called Claudia Chopek playing the female protagonist. She’s from New York, actually. She’s coming over in a couple of weeks. We start rehearsals and then there’s going to be an intermission and when people come back, we do the old stuff.
Do you get just as jazzed about the old stuff as you do the new stuff?
KEVIN: No, but I don’t hate it either, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do it. But I would never do a show with just the old stuff. Never.
I appreciate that you’re interested in making new music and going out and playing it rather than just playing the stuff from the ’80s.
KEVIN: It’s all about the new stuff. I mean, we’re happy to play the old stuff, otherwise we wouldn’t play it. But it’s really all about the new stuff. Sometimes fans want to just relive 1980 or 1981 or 1982, and that’s not what we’re about. They don’t get it. But I understand they probably had some great time around then. It was a free time in their lives or whatever, but our job is to keep moving forward. You can’t recreate the past anyway, so why try?
Even the old ones, the way we’ll be performing them is Dexys, as we are now, performing the old stuff. We’re not trying to recreate 1982. We might change tempo a little bit, or few bits and pieces, lyrics, but we realize that, at the same time, people like those songs and they want to hear them, so we don’t massively change them too much.
You mentioned a few people earlier, Sean and MIke. Do you consider them permanent members of Dexys or are they guys that just help you out in the studio?
KEVIN: They’re permanent. They’re in Dexys. They’re financially involved, they’re part of the team. They do other stuff as well but Dexys is their priority. They’re in the band photos. They are financially incentivized in that they’re on a cut of the profits and all that kind of stuff. They’re properly involved”.
With Dexys scheduled to play some U.S. dates later in the year, it is an exciting time for Kevin Rowland and his amazing friends. I wanted to highlight Dexys’ lead as he is seventy on 17th August. There are some cover versions in the playlist. As not every Dexys/Dexys Midnight Runners or Kevin Rowland solo albums are on Spotify, it is not as complete a playlist as I hoped for. Regardless, there are some important songs that are included. A nod to a remarkable artist, songwriter and human, below are a selection of songs that showcase his talent and magic touch. Someone who has brought so much joy to countless lives, I was keen to recognise and tip my cap to…
A true legend.