Vincent Power: Send ‘em Home Sweatin’

Vincent Power: Send ‘em Home Sweatin’

Interview exploring the ‘showband era’ (late 1950s to early 1970s) in Ireland from the perspective of Cork-based musicians and family members.

Vincent was born in 1960. In 1990 he published the book Send ‘em Home Sweatin’, the story of the showband era.

He talks in detail about the showband scene. Irish audiences had no access to rock’n’roll and its performers, but showbands were copycat performers who could provide that kind of experience. The ballroom scene was Ireland’s sexual revolution.
The singers and bands were so popular they were often mobbed in the street. The Dixies as quintessential showmen. The singer of The Magic Band had a suit made up of light bulbs. Showbands were frowned upon by the Catholic church. Rory Gallagher and the showbands.
He talks about Brendan O’Brien’s accidental electrocution on stage. He tells a funny anecdote about a gig at a remote location in County Galway. The Devil was said to have appeared at some ballrooms: Vincent believes such stories were spread by rival ballroom owners. He estimates the showband era was from 1960 to 1971.

5 March 1997

CFP_SR00054_power_1997

Cork; Ireland; 1960s - 1990s;

Showbands Collection Catalogue Numbers:

Accession number for collection [CFP Acc. No. 1997-004];
CFP_SR00051_dixies_1996; CFP_SR00052_rooney_1997; CFP_SR00053_nolan_1997;
CFP_SR00055_foley_1997; CFP_SR00056_various_1997:

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

Cork Folklore Project

English

Sound

1 .wav File

31 mins 34 secs

Irish Examiner offices, Academy St., Cork

90 minute cassette tape

16bit / 44.1kHz

The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com

S.H.: Moving on to the Dixies and your chapter on them, (Clown Princes ) , do you think the popular image of them is showmen , or of musical performers?

V.P: I would lean more towards the showmen label, even though they where was a musical component to them and they had some gifted musicians, primarily they were terrific showmen, and probably the best showmen of all the show bands, probably the best show band in the strict definition of the word (show band) and that definition I would use borrowing from the originators of the show band concept which would have been a band known as the clipper Carltons, from Northern Ireland. I’d probably rate the Dixies as the best show band in that sense.

S.H.: Most of the band came from very similar backgrounds, North side and working-class –do you think that contributed to the zany sense of humour that they had?

V.P: It was all very new and very exciting for these young people and you’re right a lot of them did come from the working class- people who come from very mundane day-jobs –probably relatively lowly-paid jobs and suddenly were transformed in to glamour – boys overnight and paid a lot of money. That kind of zaniness came from a freedom they had never experienced before –people looking for their autographs, people putting them on a pedestal, screaming at their every move. This was certainly exciting as far as they were concerned. It was a different world to the kind of world they would have been use to. So the kind of zany mad-caps humour you’re speaking of came party from that. They could get away with a lot more – they were away from the prying eyes of their families and local communities, they had freedom as never before.