‘Hawk’ at 90: The showband era and Showcase

DAVID FLYNN writes about his uncle, the renowned Athlone musician Joe Flynn, as he celebrates his 90th birthday - part two

Last week Joe Flynn told of his time in Athlone soccer during the 1950s, and his first steps into music with the Friary Choir in 1947, and the many local bands that he played in until he joined Syd Shine’s big band.

After Joe joined the Crescent Big Band in the early 1950s, which was led by Syd Shine, he regularly played on Thursday and Sunday nights at the Ballymahon Road venue.

“His voice was like a musical instrument, and he sang brilliantly in tune with the large group of musicians, who were all great readers of music,” said the late Syd Shine about Joe in an interview in 2004.

However the days of fourteen or fifteen piece big bands was coming to an end by the mid 1950s due to coming of the Showbands, beginning with the Clipper Carlton Showband from Strabane, Co. Tyrone.

“We saw it dying and the coming of the showbands and all the bands everywhere had to cut back and we became a five-piece showband, Syd and the Saints, with Syd on piano, Frank Somers on drums, Finbarr O’Keefe on trumpet and Pete Keighery on lead guitar and myself on vocals and bass,” said Joe.

“We did many gigs including the Trinity College ball and we put on shows on stage as well as play the music, like what other new showbands were also doing and we created atmospheric candlelight dinner dances.”

The Saints Showband was hugely successful and travelled widely, although they were competing with hundreds of other showbands throughout Ireland. It was reckoned at one stage in the 1960s there were 600 showbands around.

In 1965, the Saints expanded to an eight piece which included three new members, Frankie McDonald, Liam Meade and Brian Sullivan – all of whom became local household names.

One night in the Crescent ballroom, Joe met Mary McHale from Tulsk, Co. Roscommon. Mary was a member of a traditional music family, and was the sister of the late tin-whistle All-Ireland champion, Tom McHale, who in the 1970s ran the Athlone Folk Club from the Jolly Mariner. Joe and Mary got married in January 1967, at around the time of the well-remembered Irish farmers crisis, which included nationwide protests about rising prices and a blocking of the bridge of Athlone.

“At the time there were a lot of gimmicks done by showbands and I thought of the farmers row and asked my wife, Mary to write a song about the row,” said Joe.

Mary wrote some lyrics and Joe arranged it to the air of the traditional ballad, ‘Dan O’Hara’. The new song was called ‘The Broken-Hearted Farmer’. The National Farmers Association of the time were fascinated with the number and considered having it as their theme song.

However RTE Radio banned the record, possibly for political reasons. One DJ of the time told Joe and Mary it wouldn’t be worth his job to play the song.

The Saints had a successful tour of the US in May 1967, but fate intervened and a musicians strike around the American Midwest kept them in New York state.

However they brought the ‘Broken Hearted Farmer’ record with them and it was played on the famous Dorothy Hayden Radio Show in New York, where the group was interviewed live on air, and talked about the farmers’ row in Ireland. The record was played almost nightly on New York radio for many weeks, and the story of its banning featured in many British newspapers.

The story came to light again almost 50 years later, in 2016, when Joe and Mary were involved in the making of an RTE radio documentary about the Broken Hearted Farmer.

This writer, who produced the documentary, investigated what happened all those years previously for the RTE Doc on One, entitled ‘The Broken Hearted Farmer’.

“The cracks started to show in the Showband era around 1968, and I could see people singing in pubs and couples there enjoying the music, and the pubs were a lovely place to go and listen to music,” said Joe.

“We were in Scotland during Lent playing music when I remember saying to Syd that the end of the era was coming, and he was interested in what could happen next. Syd then went on to buy part of Wansboros field in Coosan and built the Jolly Mariner.”

Joe became entertainment manager of the Jolly Mariner, and he also ran the resident band there.

“The Mariner was a beautiful place and people could walk to there from town and then Syd put on weddings and dinner dances there,” he said. “I remember Paddy McCaul (who is now of the Shamrock Lodge Hotel) working as a young barman in the Mariner. It was a great spot.”

Joe then branched out further and helped create another Athlone cabaret landmark with the Shannon Queen at the docks in Athlone. Alongside his friend, Tommy Kilroy (who was a member of a long-established business family from Connaught Street,), Joe led this still-remembered night-spot throughout the late 1970s and into the 80s.

In 1983, Joe started arguably, his most successful band, ‘Showcase’, which ran for well over two decades with the late Frank Reid on violin, Chuck Daly on guitar, Joe Byrne on trumpet, Mickey Tierney on drums and Joe Glynn on accordion.

Joe recorded his first solo album, ‘My Thanks To You’ for the Harmac label in 1989, and he got the offer to go to Nashville, USA to record an album.

“It was nice to be asked but it would have been a huge investment of time and money and I was then pushing 60 years of age, and I don’t regret not taking up the offer,” he said.

Following the release of the album, Joe appeared on Gay Byrne’s ‘Late Late Show’ in March 1990, and alongside Syd Shine, Frank Reid and Chuck Daly, Joe sang the title track of the album, ‘My Thanks To You’.

Throughout the 1990s and through the early 2000s, Joe appeared on numerous RTE shows such as ‘Live at 3’ and ‘Open House’ singing various old-time songs. Sometimes he appeared with many dancers such as Athlone’s ‘Come Dancing’ group. Joe and Showcase toured the country and played in venues such as the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney and Jurys Cabaret tea-time dances in Dublin.

He has also recorded several music albums since those days, notably ‘Looking Back’ in 2011 with tracks from the 1940s and also a Christmas album in 2016.

Joe and Mary have two children, Amanda and Anthony, and several grandchildren. Joe is still active at almost 90 years of age, and is very proud of this new album, ‘A Lifetime of Music’.

“There have been so many changes in Athlone and the world indeed, throughout my 90 years,” he said. “The music still goes on and will go on long after we are all gone.”

Read Part One of this interview here