Hucklebucking at the tea dances
Irish showbands in Britain, 1959–1969
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v9i3.31855Keywords:
Britain, Clipper Carlton Showband, dance halls, Bridie Gallagher, immigration/emigration, Ireland/Irish, Northern Ireland, pop music, rock'n'roll, showband(s)Abstract
Showband music emerged in Ireland in the mid-1950s as a hybrid genre that drew on popular music from Britain and the United States. Consisting of electric guitar and bass, drums, piano, a horn section, and a charismatic lead singer, showbands performed an eclectic mix of covers of rock’n’roll, pop songs, country and western, songs from the English Top Ten, and an occasional Irish popular song. Learning the newest hits from American and British radio broadcasts, showband musicians brought new sounds and provocative choreographies to their dancing audiences, ultimately revolutionizing popular entertainment in Ireland. In Britain, showbands were popular among the thousands of young Irish who emigrated there from the 1950s through the 1960s. Irish showbands in residence in British dance halls and on tour from Ireland underscore hybridity at its most inventive with the host culture serving as both an object of imitation as well as a source of creative transformation. Showbands offered a vital network that connected their largely young, immigrant audiences throughout Britain. Showband music served as a progressive and generative force in Ireland’s changing social, cultural, and economic landscape; in Britain, the genre translated into a more conservative expression among the emigrant Irish, but one that served as a bridge between Ireland and contemporary British culture.
References
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Turbett, Gene. 2007. Interview with author. Omagh, Co. Tyrone, 4 August 2007.
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White, Harry. 1996. ‘The Preservation of Music and Irish Cultural History’. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 27/2 (December): 123–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3108342
Barrett, Alan. 1999. ‘Irish Migration: Characteristics, Causes and Consequences’. Discussion Paper 97 (December). Bonn: The Institute for the Study of Labor. http://ftp.iza.org/dp97.pdf (accessed 22 March 2013).
Beirne, Mildred. 2007. Interview with author. Ballyhaunis, Co. Roscommon, 29 July 2007.
Bowyer, Brendan. 1992. Interview with author. Massapequa, NY, 28 July 1992.
—2006. Interview with author. Galway, 29 July 2006.
Byrne, Barbara. 1965. ‘This Phenomenal Showband Business’. Development: The Journal of Ireland’s Economic Progress 72 (June): 24–26.
Delaney, Enda. 2007. The Irish In Post-War Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garvin, Tom. 2004. Preventing the Future: Why was Ireland So Poor for So Long? Dublin: Gill & Macmillan.
Gedutis, Susan. 2004. See You At the Hall: Boston’s Golden Era of Irish Music and Dance. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Gillan, Patrick. 2007. ‘Showband Star with a Unique Voice who Sang his Heart Out’. Obituaries, The Irish Times, 29 December.
Goek, Sara. 2013. Personal communication via email, 25 May 2013.
Hall, Reg. 1995. ‘The Social Organisation of Traditional Music-Making: The Irish in London After the War’. Ó Riada Memorial Lecture 10. University College Cork. The Traditional Music Archive and The Irish Traditional Music Society.
Hayden, Tommy. 2008. Interview with author. Greystones, Co. Wicklow, 13 July 2008.
Higgins, Jimmy. 2007a. Interview with author. Galway City, Co. Galway, 6 August 2007.
—2007b. Are Ye The Band? A Memoir of the Showband Era. Dublin: Mentor Books.
Hopkins, Des. 2007. Interview with author. Co. Kildare, Ireland, 23 July 2007.
Kennedy, Joe. 1967. ‘Showbands are Looking at the British Scene with Aching Hearts’. Top Ten Weekly, Dublin, Ireland, 17 February.
Maguire, Paul. 2012. ‘Conditions of Possibility: Changes in Popular Music Culture and the Development of Country & Irish Music’. PhD thesis, University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Derry, Northern Ireland.
McCarthy, Joe. 2007. Interview with author. Cork City, Co. Cork, 27 July 2007.
McCullough, Henry. 2007. Interview with author. Ballymoney, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, 19 July 2007.
McLaughlin, Noel, and Martin McLoone. 2000. ‘Hybridity and National Musics: The Case of Irish Rock Music’. Popular Music 19/2: 181–99.
—2012. Rock and Popular Music in Ireland: Before and After U2. Dublin: Irish Academic Press.
Miller, Rebecca S. 1996. ‘Irish Traditional and Popular Music in New York City: Identity and Social Change, 1930–1975’. In The New York Irish: Essays Towards a History, ed. R. H. Bayor and T. J. Meagher, 481–507. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ní Fhuartháin, Méabh. 2011. ‘Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann: Shaping Tradition, 1951–1970’. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland, Galway.
O’Brien, Brendan. 2006. Interview with author. Salt Hill, Galway, Co. Galway, 1 August 2006.
O’Donnell, Margo. 2009. Interview with author. Castleblaney, Co. Monaghan, 17 July 2009.
O’Hagan, Art. 2007. Interview with author. Strabane, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, 1 August 2007.
O’Hanlon, Gerry. 2004. ‘Population Change in the 1950s: A Statistical Review’. In Ireland in the 1950s: The Lost Decade, ed. Dermot Keogh, Finbarr O’Shea and Carmel Quinlan, 72–79. Cork: Mercier Press.
O’Hanlon, Mick. 2007. Interview with Paul Maguire. Strabane, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, 16 August 2007.
O’Hara, Steve. 1967. ‘Where Have All the Showbands Gone?’ Top Ten, 25 February: Vol. 1, No. 2.
Power, Vincent. 1990. Send ’Em Home Sweatin’: The Showbands’ Story. Dublin: Kilnadore Press.
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1991. ‘Arts of the Contact Zone’. Profession: 33–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25595469
Prendergast, Mark J. 1987. Isle of Noises: Rock and Roll’s Roots in Ireland. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Reynolds, Albert. 2006. Interview with author. Dublin, 10 August 2006.
Samson, Jim. 2010. ‘Little Stories from the Balkans’. In Music and Displacement: Diasporas, Mobilities, and Dislocations in Europe and Beyond, ed. Erik Levi and Florian Scheding, 181–95. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Scanlon, Ann. 2008. ‘Bill Fuller: Irishman whose Empire of Venues and Hotels Started in Camden’. Obituary in The Guardian, 8 September. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/09/popandrock.musicindustry (accessed 7 February 2013).
Smyth, Gerry. 2005. Noisy Island: A Short History of Irish Popular Music. Cork: Cork University Press.
Travers, Pauric. 1995. ‘“There was nothing for me there”: Irish Female Emigration, 1922–71’. In Irish Women and Irish Migration, ed. Patrick O’Sullivan, 146–67. London: Leicester University Press.
Turbett, Gene. 2007. Interview with author. Omagh, Co. Tyrone, 4 August 2007.
Waters, John. 1994. Race of Angels: The Genesis of U2. London: Fourth Estate.
White, Harry. 1996. ‘The Preservation of Music and Irish Cultural History’. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 27/2 (December): 123–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3108342
Published
2016-09-08
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Miller, R. (2016). Hucklebucking at the tea dances: Irish showbands in Britain, 1959–1969. Popular Music History, 9(3), 225-247. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v9i3.31855
