I HAVE been declared fit enough to present a two-part radio documentary on BBC Radio 2 called ‘How Ireland Went Pop’. The enterprise is ably produced by Owen McFadden and it’s a fascinating story. Part 1 was aired last Saturday night but you can hear Part 2 tonight at 9 o’clock if you feel so inclined.
The story began in the mid-Sixties when showbands roamed the earth. You probably have fond memories of showbands and I don’t expect you to appreciate the damage they did to whatever burgeoning Irish musical talent was around at the time. Just take my word for it. Trouble was, showband managers used to throw their hands up in despair when their charges suggested recording songs they had written. I know. I was there. I once witnessed a man being sacked for annoying the manager about his songwriting efforts. He was regarded as a disruptive influence on the others.
Shiny-suited men in showbands were making huge amounts of money by slavishly copying other people’s records. This happened nowhere else in the world. Talented musicians were seduced by big money and those talents were consequently wasted. It took willpower to resist but some had it. Step forward Van Morrison, Phil Lynott, Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore and the others who bit the bullet rather than become a showband pot.
Van Morrison left the Monarchs Showband to go it alone, playing the rhythm and blues he loved, but he too was sucked into recording other people’s songs that he didn’t like when ‘Them’ became successful.
Rock musicians in mid-Sixties Ireland were basically outcasts. I remember when a much-admired band called ‘Cream’ were due to play in Queen’s University in Belfast on a Saturday night. Coincidentally, the Dublin band I was with at the time was due to play that same night at a gig in Bangor also called Queen’s (run by Gary Moore’s father. Small world). Thanks to the Lord’s Day Observance Society, our gig was over at 11 o’clock so as not to impinge on a Sunday. This meant we could make the Cream concert in time.
Word of this spread around the Dublin rock community and we had a packed van going north. Amongst others, Henry McCullough, Phil Lynott and Rory Gallagher were stuffed into the vehicle. Whilst we were all standing in front of the stage listening to ‘Cream’ (featuring Eric Clapton et al.) I couldn’t help but think what a wonderful collection of musicians were in that one spot. Then something unusual happened. A man came over and asked for a cigarette from one of our number. He lit up with and lurched off. One of the guys nudged me and said, ‘Do you know who that was?’ ‘No,’ says I. ‘Van Morrison,’ says he. That was the icing on the cake for me.
Six months later Van went to America and made a record that is regularly featured on every top ten list of the best albums ever made – ‘Astral Weeks’. And Van had made his mark singing about Belfast. The word went out that it could be done and Phil Lynott eventually broke through with ‘Whiskey in the Jar’. This in turn impressed four young pimply persons rehearsing in a Dublin garage. They rang Phil Lynott at the unconscionably early hour of 8 o’clock one morning to ask him how they would go about being successful. To Lynott’s credit, he spent half an hour telling them how to get a record deal.
The four pimply persons are now the biggest band in the world. They call themselves U2. The Boomtown Rats became the first Irish band to get to Number One in the charts with ‘Rat Trap’. As always, Bob Geldof has a lot to say in the two programmes.
Things were happening in the North too. The indefatigable Terry Hooley encouraged the Undertones to record what John Peel still regards as the greatest pop single of all time. Being from the ravaged Derry of the period, fans from elsewhere automatically associated the Undertones with the punk movement. After all, whilst bands like the Sex Pistols were screaming about anarchy, general opinion was that the Undertones were actually living through it in the Bogside. This, in turn, annoyed the Undertones because they wanted to be recognised for the quality of their songs and not because of where they were from.
It was almost impossible for Northern bands to make it but the Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers managed it in varying degrees. And so it goes on. Amazingly, ‘Westlife’ have had more Number Ones than the Beatles. The Corrs are riding high and ‘Ash’ from Downpatrick are one of most exciting bands in the British Isles. I apologise for inevitably omitting some names but the story of the rise of Irish pop is a complicated and glorious one. Make up your own mind tonight with ‘How Ireland Went Pop, Part 2’ on BBC Radio 2 at 9 o’clock.
Originally posted in The Belfast Telegraph