Memphis native finds way back on stage via 'X Factor'

Dexter Haygood thanks "The X Factor" judges -- (from left) L.A. Reid, Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul -- after advancing in the show's boot-camp segment. The Memphis native, 49, is among 17 finalists vying for a $5 million recording contract.

Technically, Memphis native Dexter Haygood is just one of 17 finalists currently left standing on the first season of Fox television network's music competition "The X Factor."

At the end of tonight's show, judge Nicole Scherzinger, the Pussycat Dolls singer who oversees Haygood's group of contestants over 30 years old, will have to whittle down her slate of contestants from four to three. If Haygood is among the survivors, he will still have to make it through seven weeks of live performance competitions to get to the Dec. 21-22 finale and the chance at winning a $5 million recording contract.

Aaron Rapoport/FOX

Dexter Haygood is in the group of "X Factor" contestants over 30 years old being mentored by Nicole Scherzinger.

But if you listen to Haygood, who has charmed the judges and millions of "X Factor" viewers with his flamboyant showmanship and incredible hard-luck story, no matter what else occurs, he has already won just by getting another shot at the music career that slipped through his fingers 25 years ago.

"(The show has) given me a second chance," says Haygood, 49. "What's on my mind is -- not being cocky or nothing -- winning it. I'm not here for no handouts. I'm here to win it. If I don't, it's still going to be good, but all that's on my mind is winning the whole thing."

Haygood's first run at music fame and fortune came in the early 1980s. He grew up in Orange Mound and from an early age developed a unique musical perspective from neighborhood friends.

"A lot of people says how did you grow up in Orange Mound and you are such a rock-star type," says Haygood, who, during an ensemble performance of Radiohead's "Creep" in the boot-camp phase of "The X Factor," memorably strutted across the stage like Mick Jagger. "It's because I used to sneak into shows at the Mid-South Coliseum. I was introduced to rock-and-roll with Led Zeppelin, the Houses of the Holy record, when I was in sixth grade. So ever since then I've been into rock."

After graduating from Melrose High School in 1980, Haygood attended LeMoyne-Owen College for a year. Over summer break, a group of musicians, led by manager/drummer Michael "Slugger" Tucker, recruited him for their new band Xavion.

In 1984, the band signed with Mirage, an Asylum Records imprint, and released the record Burnin' Hot with a sound that seemed to bridge their Memphis forbears, the Bar-Kays, with the rock-tinged funk of their Minneapolis contemporary, Prince. The video for the single "Eat Your Heart Out" was a hit on MTV, and the band toured nationally that year, opening for Hall & Oates. But confused radio programmers stayed away from the album, and sales suffered for it. They were dropped from their label and eventually broke up.

"They way I remember it, they were just too rock for black radio and too black for rock radio," says Memphis Recording Academy chapter executive director John Hornyak, who, at his now-defunct recording studio Sounds Unreel in 1983, helped make the demo recordings that got Xavion their deal. "They were still a big draw for a period of time after that, but they just couldn't find a niche."

After the demise of the band, Haygood, then living in Los Angeles, worked on a solo project but by 1993 was homeless on the streets of L.A., he says. After time at a shelter there, he returned to Memphis, where he found work and tried to revive his music career, even reconstituting Xavion for a time in 2004.

Haygood suffered another setback in 2007, however, when the mortgage crisis claimed his home. Since then, he says, he has been "couch surfing," staying with relatives, including most recently his brother in Chicago, while hauling all his earthly possessions around in his car.

That was how he was living in June when he traveled to Dallas to audition for "The X Factor," the brainchild of former "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell that, unlike its established sister show, has no age limit on performers.

Friends and fans who had lost touch with Haygood over the years were shocked to learn on the show about the hardships he has endured.

"I had somewhat kept in touch with him over the years," says Hornyak, who ran into Haygood at a recent taping at the local Fox affiliate. "But I had no idea what all he had been through. It's an incredible story, and I'm just glad Dexter is finally getting his due."

At the Dallas audition, Haygood, wearing '70s-style stack shoes and a bedazzled denim jacket with "Memphis" screen-printed across the back, initially did not impress with his interpretation of James Brown's "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine." But, in an uncharacteristic move -- or perhaps sensing a ratings bonanza in Haygood's heart-pulling story -- Cowell gave Haygood another chance, and he delivered with an emotional reading of Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World."

Emotion, in fact, has been Haygood's hallmark on "The X Factor." He has been prone to tear up at every stage of the competition. On last week's show, which took place at Scherzinger's Malibu mansion, when she announced that he would be going on to the finals, he celebrated by jumping in her pool.

"You have this energy and this light about you," Scherzinger said, admitting that he could be hit or miss. "My heart says one thing and my head says another thing. But I have a big, big heart, and I decided to go with my heart."

For all his talk about keeping his eyes on the ultimate prize -- which in addition to a guaranteed five-year, $1 million-a-year contract also includes a Super Bowl commercial -- Haygood is making plans for a post-"X Factor" career. Though he and his fellow contestants are under contract to Sony Records, he interrupts an interview to make an appointment to meet with a Motown executive later. And he hints at other things in the works with Fox before being cut off by a nervous network PR representative.

Closer to home, Xavion, with original guitarist Kevan Wilkins, reformed in 2009.

"I knew one day this would happen if I kept my game up," says Haygood. "You've got to reinvent yourself every year, and you've got to stay in shape. And you've got to stay on the stage some kind of way even if it's just doing a number at B.B. King's (Blues Club) with the house band. You've got to keep your spontaneity muscle up. That's my thing is spontaneity and surprising you with things."

© 2011 Go Memphis. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.