Tommy Rooney: Second City Jazzband, Cork Academy School of Music

Tommy Rooney: Second City Jazzband, Cork Academy School of Music

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

Tommy Rooney was born in 1931. He was reared in Crosshaven and was the eldest of nine. His father’s family were from Dublin. He joined the army in 1945 at the age of 14 and remained in the service for 12 years. He played music during some of that time with civilian bands. After the army, he played with Donny Collins in Limerick for 9 years and with Michael O’Callaghan for 7 years. He then formed The Second City Jazz Band and played with them for 20 years. Recently he has begun teaching music at the Cork Academy School of Music in Sunbeam industrial estate. He married one of the Creedon's, a well-known sporting family from Shandon Street.

Tommy talks about his life as a musician. His early days in the army as a teenager. He talks about the very start of the showband era, the bands and Cork venues, such as the Arcadia. The experience of playing in Protestant halls in Northern Ireland.

8 January 1997

CFP_SR00052_rooney_1997

Cork City; Ireland; 1930s-1990s

Showbands Collection Catalogue Numbers:

Accession number for collection [CFP Acc. No. 1997-004];
CFP_SR00051_dixies_1996;
CFP_SR00053_nolan_1997; CFP_SR00054_power_1997; CFP_SR00055_foley_1997; CFP_SR00056_various_1997:

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

Cork Folklore Project

English

Sound

1.wav File

46m 45s

Cork Academy of Music, Sunbeam Industrial Estate, 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

SH: Going on to the show bands phenomena do you think that it was something that seemed to spring up suddenly , or did it gradually gather momentum ?

TR: I would be inclined to think it came suddenly rather than otherwise. One band in Waterford, principally. But prior to that the band from the North of Ireland, the clipper Carlton – they started doing this kind of thing. One of the necessary things was that you had to stand up – and quite a number of bands at that time would stand up and perform these show band type of tunes, with guitars. Prior to that era there were no guitars in bands – at-all – I only knew one band in Ireland that had a guitar – that was Pat Crowley from Cork Here,
they had a guy called Joe McGrinty played guitar – but no one ever heard it because it was acoustic so you wouldn’t know if he was playing it or not really, even though I played with him myself , I was always a bit dubious , because you couldn’t hear what he was doing anyway ( Chuckles ) So they were no
good to you . But when the electric guitar came in really ‘’ that’s when the show band thing....... and the happened together almost.

SH: Did you ever meet or know Lonnie Donnegan?

TR: Yeah, I did he came over here with Chris Barber’s band first. He um...... he started the Skiffle thing just about that time. I remember him doing ‘’ Cumberland Giap ‘’ in Arcadia; it would have been about..... The middle ‘50s, maybe about ‘55, 56,