From toy trumpets to President Kennedy and The Drifters

Much has changed in the world since a young child played a toy trumpet out the bedroom window of his home on Christmas morning in the early 1950s to join in with the Clones Brass Band performing outside.

But Frankie McDonald’s lifelong association with music, and with the trumpet, continues to this day and despite his autobiography being published shortly he has no intention of retiring from the music business.

Frankie McDonald’s book, 'A Million Miles of Music', will be launched in The Shamrock Lodge Hotel, Athlone, on Thursday, November 10 at 7pm.

Frankie was one of two sons born to Peter and Kathleen McDonald in Monaghan.

Music was part and parcel of his upbringing: his father was a violin player, who played with the local McMahon’s band, while selling insurance on the side.

Frankie remembers vividly his father, clean as a whistle, in a dress suit leaving the house at night for gigs.

“Musicians were in and out of the house all the time. That was the business we were in, even though we didn’t know it.

“There might be musicians coming from England to augment the band from time to time, so he’d always bring some fella home,” he recalled.

Frankie himself took up the trumpet at the age of ten encouraged by a friend of his father’s, Barney McCabe, father of famous novelist and film producer Pat McCabe.

It was Barney who brought the Clones Brass Band down to the McDonald home on Christmas morning and brought two toy plastic trumpets for Frankie and his brother, Peter, now a musician in Canada, to join in.

As a 12-year-old he performed on a radio show, ‘Children of the Microphone’, from BBC in Belfast, and from the GPO in Dublin.

Two years later, he was interviewed for the Army School of Music at Cathal Brugha Barracks in Rathmines.

He remembers his mother dropping him at The Diamond in Clones and giving him a little overnight suitcase in the event he needed to stay in Dublin that night.

Little did she know that she was seeing him off from the family home for good, as Frankie explained. “I never got home. I did the interview and they said: “We are going to keep you here, ‘Are you happy enough?” I wrote a little letter home. That was the end. I was kind of gone (from home) from there,” he said.

Although the army band members were non-combatants, part of the training included drill work and scrubbing and polishing and so on. Students were then taught the theory of music before being introduced to their instruments.

Frankie was at the army school for over two years as students were only sent to join various army bands when they reached the age of 17. It was at that tender age that he first came to Athlone, where he since built his life with wife Mai and children, Keith, Lorraine and Peter.

As a member of the Band of the Western Command, he was chosen as one of the official buglers for State receptions for visiting dignitaries including at the arrival of Princes Grace and Prince Rainier of Monaco at Dublin Airport and at President De Valera’s reception afterwards in Áras an Uachtárain.

Frankie also performed on the trumpet at Arbour Hill Cemetery in June 1963 when President John F Kennedy laid a wreath on the graves of the executed leaders of the 1916 rising..

And he was sent to augment the No 1 Army Band for the garden party for President Kennedy at Áras an Uachtárain later during that famous visit.

Another memorable highlight from Frankie’s time with the Band of the Western Command took place in 1965 when an opportunity arose for the band to take part in a six-month tour of duty in Cyprus with the 42nd Infantry Battalion.

“There was always a pipe band that travelled with the soldiers. This particular year there wasn’t a pipe band available, so we were chosen to go out,” he explained.

As non-combatants, the band members worked as orderlies in the messes and so on.

Five of the band members, Brian Sullivan, Liam Meade, the late Paddy Sheriff and the late Denis Prendergast and Frankie started a band, initially, to play for their Irish colleagues in the camp.

Subsequently, they were brought to Nicosia to play at the English camp, which, in turn, led to concerts for the Canadians, Swedes and Finns, before they toured full time for the second three months of their Cyprus stay playing around the different UN camps.

Whilst in the army band, Frankie initially played for two years with the Eamon Robinson Showband (also the Central 7), with The Pyramids, and then from 1965, with the famous Athlone showband Syd & The Saints, alongside Syd Shine, Finbar O’Keeffe, Peter Keighery, Frank Somers, Brian Sullivan, Liam Meade and, Joe Flynn but opted not to turn professional with the band in mid 1966.

Frankie had met his now wife Mai at this stage and when he had left The Saints was asked by her father, Ciaran, to join his band, the Ciaran Kelly Ceilí Band, which also featured Mai, Brendan Shine, Larry Benson and Johnny Dawson among others.

One evening in 1968, Frankie was playing with a small jazz band when a copy of the Evening Herald with the banner front page headline ‘Drifters Split’ came into the venue.

It sparked a chain of events which resulted in Frankie auditioning for The Drifters at the unlikely venue of a carnival in nearby Cloghan, where he played a short personal set, in advance of the full Ciaran Kelly Ceilí Band performance, with manager Ben Dolan amongst the audience.

Subsequently, the job was offered to Frankie as Joe and Ben Dolan worked to rebuild the band from scratch after five members had departed.

Thus started a 39-year membership of The Drifters and the end of his career in the army band.

Frankie recalls the new band’s first gig after reforming, in front of up to 1,500 people in the Las Vegas Ballroom in Templemore on August 15, 1968

“His popularity was unbelievable. There was a lot of hype about the new band. That first year was mega. They used to call it Driftermania,” Frankie recalls.

The Drifters’ popularity mushroomed further in the coming years as songs such as 'Make Me An Island' and 'Goodbye Venice' provided a stepping stone to international audiences and regular concert tours followed.

The 39 years of The Drifters is at the heart of Frankie’s book, including tales of playing to over 100,000 people in a covered ice rink in Leningrad, Russia, over ten days, concerts in Tel Aviv and Johannesburg and of course, stints in Las Vegas, USA.

It was there that Frankie’s life almost took another sharp turn, when a stint in a casino and theatre in the famous US playground of the rich and famous turned into an offer of a permanent residency for the band.

Frankie recalls: “We thought, ‘This is great, property is cheap, bring the kids out, we’ll have a great life, happy ever after,’” he recalls, laughing.

But the independent-minded Joe Dolan had other ideas: “The meeting lasted one minute. Joe said: ‘I want to go home now and play golf with my friends and play a bit of music’,” Frankie recalled.

Looking back now, he says: “It was the best decision he ever made.”

'A Million Miles of Music' is full of stories about life in The Drifters, and asked to describe the legendary late Joe Dolan, Frankie said: “He loved company, there was always a new joke in the dressing room with him.

“People loved him for what he was,” he says.

Along the way Frankie did some radio advertising sales and took on some promotional work for the band, including what transpired to be the last show in Abbeyleix.

“He wasn’t that well coming up to it. He did his best. He always said that if he couldn’t give it 100 per cent he was gone.

“That particular night in Abbeyleix, he did four tunes and after the fourth tune, he turned round to the audience and said: “I’m sorry, I can’t continue and give the show one-hundred percent tonight, and to be fair to you and myself, I have to finish, please forgive me.”

“We thought Joe would be back but that was the end,” he recalls. Joe died three months later, on St Stephen’s Day, 2007.

Having spent almost four decades with Joe Dolan, Frankie’s life in show business started a new chapter when he began a ten-year link up with Brendan Grace, playing as the opening act for the comedian’s live shows until his passing in 2019.

Along the way there have been albums, jazz gigs and tours.

Frankie also picked up steady work on cruise ships and in venues in Spain and Portugal over the last 15 years as well as performing with his children Keith and Lorraine, initially as part of Keith and Lorraine and The Showband Show and latterly when they performed as a duo.

He is full of life and enthusiasm, even after 60 years in the music business. “I swim in the lake every morning and walk home,” he says, with a smile.

Asked if he intended to hang up his trumpet, Frankie quickly responded in the negative.

“As long as it lasts,” he says, when asked when he plans to retire. “As long as it lasts.”