The Big Eight
(1971-1996)
Photo Gallery -
Band Lineups -
Discography
- Audio samples -
Where Are They Now?
The Story
The dominance of the Royal Showband from
Waterford on the early showband era is well documented (click here to read the Royal
story) but in August, 1971 the Irish entertainment scene was rocked when
Brendan Bowyer and Tom Dunphy announced they were
packing up their instruments and forming a new band.
The new band would now split its time evenly between the ballroom
scene in Ireland and the hotel showrooms of Las Vegas.
In putting together the new outfit, they had
musicians hired before even deciding on a name. In the August 19, 1971 issue of
Spotlight, potential names for the band included Casino Royal, The
Ambassadors and the Big 8. An article in the December 30th,
1971 edition of the Connaught Telegraph reported Dublin
promoter Bill Fuller also had a share in the band.
In leaving the Royal behind, Bowyer and Dunphy
put together a high profile lineup, full of big names from the
showband scene including Paddy Cole on sax (from The Capitol), Twink
on vocals (from Maxi, Dick and Twink), Jimmy
Conway on guitar (from The Bye-Laws), Michael Keane on keyboards
(from the Johnny McEvoy Band), Dave Coady on trumpet (from The Real
McCoy),
Brendan on vocals, Tom on bass, and Mickey O'Neill (from The Capitol) on drums.
Twink and Jimmy had been playing together with Aidan Scannell, Paul
Holohan and Pat Morris as Twink and the Bye-laws after
touring Canada as Toybox (the Bye-laws being one of
the top Dublin beat groups of the late 60's.) The new band truly were The Big Eight
and were, of course, a sensation
from day one but their future would not be smooth sailing.
As an interesting aside, it was reported in the
August 26, 1971 issue of Spotlight that Jimmy Hogan (formerly
guitarist with the Capitol) who was with Pat Roper & the
Spotlights, was to join the Big 8. The report said that Jimmy
had posed for photographs for the new band, but backed out at the
last minute and remained with the Spotlights.
The Royal Showband had played The Desert
Inn in Las Vegas in 1966 and came back to Vegas in 1967, moving to
the Stardust Hotel on the famous Las Vegas Strip. As popular as the
band became in Vegas, they were forced to change their programme
from the charts hits of the day (which they played in the ballrooms)
to the fare of The Irish Showband, the name by which they would
become better known in later days in Vegas. In July, 1971, the Royal played
its last gig at the Stardust and the band came home and shocked the
world by announcing that they were splitting up.
When
The Big Eight formed, T.J. Byrne
(who had left the Royal in 1967 to manage the
Sands) came back
to manage the new band. The band came together and played their
first gig in Manchester on Friday, September 10th, 1971. Their first gig
in Ireland would be September 24th in Navan.
In November, they released their first single,
"You Gave Me A Mountain," a song written by
country singer Marty Robbins. Released on the new Play label, it
reached number 6 in the Irish charts and started the new band off
with their first top ten hit (they would have only one more top ten
hit).
They played through the
Fall and Christmas Holidays in Ireland before heading off to Las Vegas and debuting in the Stardust in
March, 1972. They had a newer, fresher
sound than the aging Royal, and the addition of a female vocalist
was designed to help the band reach a wider audience. They also
featured four dancers, a nod to the "norm" in Vegas...all the big
stars had dancers.
Back in Ireland, the Big Eight were a huge
success. Dividing their time between Vegas and home made them a scarce
commodity and even more popular. The band continued to release records
at home, helping to keep the fans looking for more of the band...it was
a great promotional success for Byrne, Bowyer and Dunphy.
However, less than three years after launching the band
(July, 1974) a report in Spotlight said Twink had finally tired of the dual lifestyles necessitated by spending
six months of the year away from family and friends in Vegas. It was
reported she played her last gig with the band in the Stardust, Las
Vegas in early July, 1974. An advert in the August 1, 1974 issue of
Spotlight confirmed the story as the band were advertising for a
"female vocalist with experience in harmony essential." At the same
time, however, Kelley, who had
just had a hit single with The Nevada and whom Brendan and Tom knew
well, was asked to fill the spot left vacant by Twink's departure
and agreed without hesitation as she loved Vegas from a previous
trip with Red Hurley.
However, more grief was to befall the band as before the
summer was out: Paddy Cole, also tired of the traveling and the grind
of the Vegas scene, left and formed the new
Paddy Cole Band
which he launched in September, 1974. Paddy,
who had been the bandleader for The Big Eight, took most of the band
with him as Jimmy Conway, Mickey O'Neill and Michael Keane joined Twink in the new outfit that would itself, undergo many changes in
the years ahead. The band was completed by adding former Capitol man Mike Dalton on
bass, Ray Moore (of the Plattermen) on trumpet and a young vocalist,
Pat Morris (who had been Jimmy Conway and Twink in the Bye-laws) to the ranks.
Meanwhile, the Big Eight faced the daunting
task of finding replacements for a set of high caliber musicians.
The new Big Eight lineup was completed quickly and at the end of the
year, they headed off to Vegas again. The new lineup was Brendan
Bowyer (vocals), Tom Dunphy (bass), Dave Coady (trumpet), Kelley
(Nevada - vocals), Ray Doherty (guitar), Pat Chesters (Plattermen
and Ray Moore's former band mate- sax), Noel Ryan (The Sands
- keyboards), and Martin Branagan (drums). In January of 1975, the
band left for Vegas, not knowing that six months later,
everything would change.
The first six months in Las Vegas was back to
"work as usual" for the band, three shows a night, six nights a
week. The programme was the same every night and Kelley was limited
to singing only two numbers. She quickly became bored with the
routine and had not been feeling well so she decided she would leave
the band after they did their six month stint in the
ballrooms in Ireland.
On
Tuesday, July 29th, 1975, the band was booked to play at "The Mary From Dungloe Festival" in County Donegal. Most of the band were already
in Donegal when 40-year-old Tom Dunphy
was driving to the gig with keyboard player Noel Ryan as a
passenger. On a curve at Drumsna, near Carrick-on-Shannon in County
Leitrim, Tom lost
control of the car colliding with a lorry (truck) and was killed.
Noel survived, but things would never be the same. Today, a stone
monument marks the spot where one of the era's brightest stars had
lost his life.
In an amazing twist of fate, the issue of
Spotlight
which was published on July 31st (two days after his tragic death)
featured an in depth interview with Tom talking about his concerns
over moving his family to the United States. The following week,
they ran a full page story entitled "Tom a fully fledged Redskin
from Waterford," and a few pages later, the sad notice about his
death. He was at the top of his game when he died at only 40 years
of age.
Tom's tragic death at such a
young age devastated Brendan, the band, and the Irish music
industry....but his passing would be
overshadowed when just two days later, three members of the
Miami
showband were gunned down by terrorists while returning home from a gig
in the North of Ireland. August, 1975 was one of the darkest periods
in the history of the showband era. In some
ways, the events of those two days marked the end of an era of innocence that had been mirrored
in the ballrooms and marquees across Ireland for nearly two decades.
The band canceled all gigs for a
month while they mourned the loss of Tom. He had been one of the
pillars on which the band's success was built and he would be impossible to
replace. Somehow, Brendan and the band
picked themselves up and carried on. They hired Frankie Carroll, the country bass
player who had previously fronted The Ranchers and spent time
with the Brendan Shine Band and joined The Country Folk
after the departure of Margo just a year earlier in 1974. Joining
the Big Eight was an opportunity that would change his life
forever. Also coming back to the band from Paddy Cole were Jimmy
Conway on guitar and Michael Keane on keyboards. Noel Ryan left the
band to join the reforming Miami after the tragic death of three of
its members just 2 days after Tom Dunphy's death. Finally, in
September, Kelley
announced she was leaving the band and Ray Doherty left to start up a
new band, Las Vegas, which would feature Rob Strong.
A blurb in the November 6th,
1975 issue of Spotlight refuted a claim from former Harvest
singer Mary Lou that she had been asked to join the band. In the
short article, Brendan Bowyer was quoted as saying the rumour was
untrue. The article concluded by saying that, in fact, the band was
not looking for a female vocalist to replace Kelley and that there
was even a chance Kelley might return to Vegas with the band in
January. Just a few weeks later, it was announced that Helen Jordan
had been picked as Kelley's replacement, and Julie Boyd reported
seeing Helen's Dublin debut night in the Olympic ballroom in mid
December. Also in December, Spotlight carried an announcement
that Kelly had joined Ray Doherty in the new band,
Las Vegas with
Rob Strong, but she would soon have her own band, Kelley and
Klass.
When the band returned to Las
Vegas in early 1976, they drafted Lola (real name Anne Mooney), formerly of the
New Blues
to replace Helen. The Big 8 moved to the Aladdin Hotel where they
stayed until 1980. In June 1977, upon their return to Ireland, Lola
left the band, but remained in Las Vegas where she still lives today. Within a couple of years, Mickey O'Neill had also
returned to the band. As far as we know, Jimmy, Lola, Mickey, and Michael
stayed in Las Vegas and were performing with Brendan from
time to time, but sadly Mickey passed away June 15, 2010.
One of the final changes to the
band was the addition of D.J. Curtin in 1979 on vocals and sax who replaced
Paddy Reynolds. Not only was D.J. a bona fide star in his own right,
having fronted the Kerry Blues for many years, he was a double
threat with both strong vocals and sax, and he also did a mean Tom
Jones impersonation. In fact, between 2008 and 2010, D.J. was touring
with an Elvis impersonator named Mark Lean.
By
1980 the band had moved to Las
Vegas year round, only returning to Ireland for occasional tours. Although Brendan and the band
never duplicated the fanatical success of the Royal, they broke new
ground by becoming the first Irish band to successfully thrive
across two continents. Before permanently relocating to Vegas the band spent close to a decade dividing their time
equally between Las Vegas (where they were known only as The Irish
Showband), and the Irish ballroom circuit where they thrilled
dancers as The Big Eight.
During a 2015 interview, D.J.
Curtin told me a little more about the band's later history. From
1982 through 1986 they were resident in the Barbary Coast Hotel and
Casino. From 1986 through 1996 they were part of the Clontarf Castle
cabaret show every summer. Frankie Carroll left the band in 1992 and
went to Chicago. The last advert we could find in our newspaper
archives was in August, 1996.
Like most of the bands that
were formed by some of the best known names of the time (Dickie's
Band, Stage 2, etc.), the Big Eight never matched the popularity or
drawing power of originals (in this case, The Royal Showband).
Perhaps it was because the superstars had grown older and were no
longer the idols of a younger dancing generation. Perhaps it was
because the showband era truly was just a short "flash in the pan"
which was basically over by the early 1970's. Or maybe these aging
stars couldn't keep up with the changing musical trends. One way or another, Brendan
Bowyer and the Big Eight were one of the biggest names during the
later years of the showband (or ballroom) era.
Sadly, Brendan Bowyer passed
away on May 28th, 2020 after a long illness.
Photo
Gallery
Click on thumbnails for full images
