Flamingoes Showband (1961
- 1970?)
Photo Gallery -
Band Lineups -
Discography
- Audio samples -
Where Are They Now?
The Story
Editor's note: Every care
has been taken to present only factual information in this story
based on newspaper articles and photographic
archives. If you can add anything or correct info in this story,
please email us and let us know.
The first mention of the Dundalk-based Flamingoes Showband we
found was on April; 22, 1961 when a small advert appeared in the
Drogheda Independent newspaper announcing the band were
"flying your way" and playing in the Abbey
Ballroom in Drogheda on 29th of April. Based on the adverts we could
find for the band's gig, they seemed to stay more or less around
their home town during that first summer, playing quite often in the
Abbey Ballroom. The band was managed by Patrick Keating of Dundalk.
By the end of July they started to
branch out playing some summer carnivals in neighboring Cavan as
well as gigs in the Pavilion Ballroom in their hometown, Dundalk.
They would continue to build their reputation, traveling further
afield and eventually making their way in the midlands.
As with some other bands.
researching the Flamingoes is somewhat difficult as they shared
their name with the exotic pink bird as well as the famous ballroom
in Ballymena and several fashion shops and coffee houses/bars/clubs
around the country. We do know that Des Wilson, who would eventually
join the Cotton Mill Boys was part of the band for a time.
Throughout the next few years, the
band would continue to enjoyed success, and continued to expand
their territory across the country. We should acknowledge that our
ability to fully tell the story of any band (from researching
newspaper archives) is always hampered by a lack of adverts
featuring the band. We can assume this to be a lack of success or
gigs, but this is not always the case, so we try to assume that a
band which does not appear very often is still busy enough to stay
on the road and this is the case with the Flamingoes. Additionally,
we have not been able to find a feature about the band which mnight
give us the names of the lineup, so we apologise for not have that
info.
After 1969, we could find very few
adverts for the band playing ballrooms across the country., However,
in 1971, the name started to appear in adverts for the Embankment
although we can not be sure it was the same band. They would appear
there weekly for several months so we can assume they were the
resident band with various "guest stars" every week.
It would seem that the band may
have gone off the road sometime late in 1970, or possibly took up
the residency in the Embankment after downsizing, one way or
another, we could not find any reference to them after 1972.
More to come.....
click on thumbnails for full image
