For a couple of glorious years as the fast-living 90s morphed into the 00s, UK garage/2-Step duo Artful Dodger didn’t so much frequent the British pop charts as take up permanent residency.
Producers Mark Hill and Pete Devereux concocted a suitably UK take on US house and R’n’B that was equal parts both but derivative of neither, and in the process made a star of then unknown singer Craig David.
Based in Southampton, away from the glare of the London club scene that lapped up their inventive productions, the classically-trained Hill and Devereux were afforded the time to hone their distinctive sound. The pair first met at a recording studio Hill co-ran in the city. Their earliest productions were unofficial dance/R’n’B bootleg remixes of artists like Gabrielle and Olive – their slightly shady origins giving rise to their Charles Dickens-inspired moniker.
Having worked with Southampton teenager Craig David on early singles Something and What Ya Gonna Do, all three were catapulted to stardom when Re-Rewind leapt to number two in 1999. What followed was six consecutive Top 20 singles, including Movin’ Too Fast (featuring Romina Johnson), Woman Trouble (also featuring David) and a re-recorded TwentyFourSeven (with vocals from All Saints’ Melanie Blatt).
All the singles were included in Artful Dodger’s debut album, It’s All About the Stragglers. Hill meanwhile went onto work with David on his debut album, Born To Do It, earning them an Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year in 2001 (Artful Dodger won the same gong for Re-Rewind the year before).
While Hill and Devereux parted ways in 2001, in 2017 the pair reunited in the studio, recording under the new name Original Dodger.
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