California Brakemen Story (1970-1974?)
Photo Gallery -
Band Lineups -
Discography
- Audio samples -
Where Are They Now?
The Story
Editor's note:
This feature has been compiled from researching newspaper archives and
although every care
has been taken to present only factual information about the band if you can add anything or correct info in this story,
please email us and let us know.
As far as we can tell, the California Brakemen started life as a
five piece cabaret group around the Belfast pubs and cabaret clubs
in 1970. They had a residency in The Whistle Stop country club. The
first advert we can find for them was in June, 1970 when they were
taking part in a variety show in the Savoy theatre in Cork with
international star Roy Orbison. However, their name would not appear
again in any adverts until December when they played the Hitching
Post near Dublin. We're not sure if it was the same band and
will do more research to see if we can find an answer. The original
lineup was: Crawford Bell (RIP-guitar), Mike Morris (guitar),
Bryson Black (bass), Jimmy McLenaghan (drums) and Maxie Catherwood
(steel).
Just as an aside, our newspaper
archives do not include the Belfast Telegraph so our
information on Belfast-based bands is always incomplete and should
it become available, we will do our best to update our features
whenever we can.
The
next reference to them we found was an advertisement for their new
album, The Country Music World of the California Brakemen
in Spotlight
which was released on the M and M label in January, 1971. They were
also featured on BBC 1's programme "Day At
Night" on Monday, January 11th along with Gene Stuart and Muriel
Day. In March, an article mentioned their "hit recording of Jesus
Take My Hand."
A few months later, an article
appeared in Spotlight reporting that the group had become a six
piece and was turning professional in April. The new lineup
included Crawford Bell (guitar), Mike Morris (guitar), Jimmy McLenaghan (drums), Maxie Catherwood (steel) and they
added Tom Hickland (fiddle and keyboards) and Bryson Black was
replaced by Dave O'Brien (bass). They were
being launched and managed by Mick Connolly of Aiken Promotions.
Bryson would emigrate to South Africa lived for a time before
returning to Ireland.
It wasn't too long before they had
their second defection, Mike Morris left the band and was replaced by
Johnny Burke. In the beginning, they mostly played in and around
Belfast, but by mid year, they had started to journey far from the
city centre to more rural spots and more importantly, south of the
border. Said leader Crawford Bell in July, 1971, "Now that we're
doing a full band programme, we only make rare appearances in the
cities. It is in the out-of-town centres that a good country and
western sound is appreciated."
They released their first single
in early 1972, Waltz of the Angels. It did not sell well
enough to make the Irish charts, but helped further establish the
band on the lucrative ballroom circuit across Ireland. They were
soon playing places like Dublin, Limerick, Offaly and Galway as well
as their base in the North. A second single was released in June of
1972, Cowboy Convention. Again it did not sell that well, but
further helped with gigs in the South. By that time, the band was
being hailed as one of the top authentic country bands in the north
but had yet to conquer venues further south. By mid 1972, the band
had its one half hour show ion Ulster TV called "Their
Kind of Music" and they were finally making fairly major inroads
south of the border.
At the end of 1972 the band were
guests on Margo's RTE programme called
"Margo and Co." which also included the biggest names in Irish
country at the time, The Indians and
Big Tom.
The band underwent a fairly major
change in January, 1973 when Johnny Bourke left and was
replaced by a female vocalist, 18-year-old Linda Mayne. The change
helped broaden the band's appeal and said Crawford Bell at the time,
"Linda has pulled the band together like never before. She's a
really strong force in the band now." We also know from
newspaper adverts that by March, 1973 Maxie Catherwood had left the
band and joined a group called Country Code.
Although it took some time, about
8 months later (in August), they released the first single to
feature Linda, Medals for Mothers on the Release label. As
far as we can tell, this was their last single. We came across an
advert for the band in 1974, but nothing after that, so we think
they may have gone off the road then.
In June 1974, Frankie McBride took
over as the lead singer with the Brakemen, and the band switched
managers to Nelius O'Connell. However, this would be short lived as
it was reported in October that Frankie he had left the band to go
on the cabaret circuit. The last advert we could find for the band
was November 3rd, 1974 and we assume they went off the road at this
point.
We do know that Crawford Bell went
on to a long solo career and will try to find more about that as
soon as we can. In 1977 Crawford formed a band called Steel Rail.
In early 1977 Linda Mayne released a solo album called My
Favourites.
More to come.....
click on thumbnails for full image
