Anybody who met Jeff in the 1980s would have quickly learned a few things. This was a man obsessed with Marlboro Reds, decent lager, LEVI’S selvedge jeans, Happy Mondays and Dexys Midnight Runners. Dexys were a lifelong fixation: equal parts mindset and melody, woven deeply into Jeff’s life ever since he first saw them supporting The Specials at Manchester’s Russell Club in 1979 — a gig later referenced in Kevin Rowland’s extraordinary memoir, ‘Bless Me, Father.’
That fascination never faded. Back at Jeff’s house, Don’t Stand Me Down became an evangelical post-pub listening ritual, while the album’s elusive videos — almost impossible to see elsewhere at the time — played on constant rotation. Everything mattered: from My Beauty to One Day I’m Going to Soar, from Andrew Weatherall’s remix of “Grazing in the Grass” to the Glastonbury 2024 set. Mindset and melody, all the time.
Not long ago, friend and producer David Holmes called the Heavenly office to say he’d just finished work on a new Dexys Midnight Runners record. The last time Holmes had rung with that level of excitement, he was telling them they needed to sign Kneecap.
The record David had worked on would be the first album released under the full Dexys Midnight Runners name since Don’t Stand Me Down. It soon became the bullseye in Jeff’s lifelong obsession with the band, a record he describes simply as “an absolute masterpiece.”
A hundred other enthusiasms have come and gone over the years, but Dexys remain untouched: they are one of the greatest British bands of all time. LOVE, all the way.
Written by Robin Turner.
Robin is also the author of, ‘…Believe In Magic, Heavenly Recordings, The First 30 Years,’ published by White Rabbit Books.