Too-Rye-Ay

DEXY'S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS

(Island)

We all know "Come on Eileen," the No. 1 hit by the band from Birmingham, England, named after Dexedrine. But Dexy's Midnight Runners were a one-hit-wonder band that actually put out an album with merit. The band's "Northern Soul" sound, buoyed by horns, fiddle, chick background vocals and plenty of rhythmic bounce, maintained an irrepressible infectiousness throughout Too-Rye-Ay. Lead singer Kevin Rowland could at times sound like he was gasping for air, but when he reins it in proves a very effective vocalist, a solid fit for Dexy's springy sound.

This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2008.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...