Dublin showband with unexpected rocker on the B-side
Label: Pye
Year of Release: 1967
For all their strengths, Irish showbands could seldom be accused of being ground-breaking. Hard-working, entertaining, and musically accomplished, yes - trend-setting, no. What's often noticeable about the majority of the 45s they issued is most were entrenched in styles the rest of Europe had left behind a few years earlier, from slick, watery-eyed, round vowelled balladry to old-school rock and roll.
Dublin's The Carousels (aka The Carousel Showband) try their hand at both on this 45, with "Holiday Romance" on the A-side being the kind of prim, Cliff Richard-esque whimsy you'd expect from the title, whereas the flip "The Run-Run" is an unexpectedly pounding piece of swinging rock with a steady backbeat which wouldn't have shamed The Beatles' earliest live sets. While I've never had the pleasure of watching The Carousels live, you can imagine what they were capable of delivering from the hints afforded here; a nice slowie for the dancefloor and a raucous rock and roll number for when the drinks were truly flowing.
For all the strengths "The Run-Run" affords, though, it sounds like a relic from the early Merseybeat boom and would have been a total fish out of water during the summer of 1967; a nice memento for those who enjoyed their live shows but not something that would have made much sense to the paisley kids.
The group consisted of Billy McDonnell on guitar, Eddie Reynolds on sax, Mick Smith on trombone, Tommy Fitzpatrick on trumpet, John Keating on bass, Roy Lindsay on drums, Dermot McMullen on vocals and Johnny Grant on vocals. Their life on the showband circuit seems relatively short-lived, and their recorded career seems to have consisted of this single and the single "I'm Waiting For You" on Rex in 1965 - but the research trail is not strong enough to confirm this. If you know more, please do feel free to chip in.
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5 comments:
Quality tunes just like most of the showbands, but A side sounds like late 50s, and the flip is more 64
am I to presume showbands only had a limited run on pressed 45's as they were only likely to sell locally?
Hi Gaz - in Ireland they were often top ten artists, so significant (by Irish standards) press runs definitely occurred, and the records sold nationally.
I find it harder to get a sense of how widespread their UK releases were, though. Pye in particular seemed to put loads of showband singles out in the UK, but copies are really hard to come by, and it's unclear how often the bands toured here or whether the records sold outside the Irish ex-pat population. So that is a bit baffling and I don't really have an answer to your question! Somebody who used to work at Pye might know whether they got national distribution or were just releases focused on particular cities with a strong Irish population.
(The thought also occurs that these could have been predominantly NI distributed releases, since the bands definitely toured up there regularly).
thanks Dave, you're right and if anyone remembers the Grumpy's Golden Oldies wants list it was awash with showband singles (albeit matched by Jamaican ska and rock steady)
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