If you were confused as to why we said the ‘original’ Artful Dodger, well, you’re not alone. The guys currently touring as the dynamic duo aren’t the ones who came up with the singles you probably know and love. See GetDarkerTV set below.
Mark Hill and Pete Devereux started the British garage duo Artful Dodger in 1997 in Southampton, taking their name from a character in the Charles Dickens book Oliver Twist.
Before their debut album, It’s All About The Stragglers, dropped in late 2000, they were responsible for the epic tune ‘Re-Rewind’ with Craig David, which provided the launchpad for his solo success. Mark told Point Blank Music School: “A friend of mine was working on a project for Southampton Football Club with a youth centre, and used the studio to record a track with them. Craig was one of the soloists so I could see the talent and potential he had.
“It was years later, when we started making the Artful Dodger tunes and were looking for a vocalist to do original stuff, that I bumped into him in a club and asked if he wanted to come to the studio, he was already a fan of the stuff we had done so agreed to get involved.”
Craig revealed last year that ‘Re-Rewind’ was almost lost forever because computers were pretty shit back in 1999. He told the BBC: “We finished the song and dubbed it onto a little TDK D90 cassette to go and play it in the car, but there was a couple of little tweaks we wanted to do – and literally as [producer Mark Hill] turned the computer on, all we saw was this ‘error, file number’ message.
“So that plastic TDK tape became gold dust. We had the whole song on there, and we had to use the recording as our reference, playing it very carefully so it didn’t get chewed up, and trying to remember all the things we did. And that was ‘Rewind’.”
It’s All About The Stragglers, which included songs such as ‘Movin’ Too Fast’, ‘Woman Trouble’ and ‘Please Don’t Turn Me On’, featured eight other artists and reached number 18 on the UK charts, which is pretty impressive considering they had only released a few singles prior. Pete left the duo before the single ‘TwentyFourSeven’ debuted and MC Alistair filled the void.
But Mark says he was burnt out and strained various relationships with people working on the project. As a result he decided to move on and focused on producing for other artists, including Craig David. But, mysteriously, MC Alistair and Dave Low were able to use the name Artful Dodger and have been touring and performing ever since.
Well, Mark and Pete are putting that behind them and are launching a comeback after 15 years.
The duo have been busy in the studio, collaborating with the likes of Nadia Rose, P Money, Donae’o, Shakka, Big Narstie, Avelino, President T and others for a new album – although, for legal reasons, they’re now working under the name of Original Dodger.
They’re expecting to release new music soon, share their story and continue where they left off in 2001.
Mark posted this to Twitter earlier in the week:
It’s All About The Stragglers, which included songs such as ‘Movin’ Too Fast’, ‘Woman Trouble’ and ‘Please Don’t Turn Me On’, featured eight other artists and reached number 18 on the UK charts, which is pretty impressive considering they had only released a few singles prior. Pete left the duo before the single ‘TwentyFourSeven’ debuted and MC Alistair filled the void.
But Mark says he was burnt out and strained various relationships with people working on the project. As a result he decided to move on and focused on producing for other artists, including Craig David. But, mysteriously, MC Alistair and Dave Low were able to use the name Artful Dodger and have been touring and performing ever since.
Well, Mark and Pete are putting that behind them and are launching a comeback after 15 years.
You can follow the duo on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on the name @originaldodger.
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