|
The Millionaires
made their debut in Dublin’s Cystal Ballroom on St. Stephen’s night
1964. Pat O’Flynn, manager of The Crystal had decided to put a
showband on the road to rival some of the big names with whom he was
dealing, and so, under the direction of well-known drummer Johnny
Devitt, seven young musicians were handpicked to make up the new
band.
Guitarist Michael
Conn from Coalisland and bassist Joe Doherty from Belfast came from
The Grafton Showband. They were already established as “The
Yodelling Twins” and later secured a residency on RTE’s weekly
country music show, “Hoedown”, where they built up a huge following.
Vocalist Penny Trent also came from The Grafton and saxophonist Gene
Bannon from Cootehill, Co. Cavan joined from Pat Campbell’s Showband.
Trumpeter Tommy Walsh started with the band but in Easter 1965 he
left and was replaced by Jimmy Higgins who decided to return home
from Manchester where he had been a member of the International
Showband, the resident band in the city’s Carousel Club. Trombonist
Billy Doyle and drummer Mick O’Brien completed the line-up.
Buoyed on by the
success of Conn and Doherty on television and carefully managed by
Devitt, The Millionaires made an immediate impact on the dancing
scene. They appeared on RTE’s “Showband Show” and “Go 2 Show” and
made four successful trips to the U.S.A. where they played in the
famous City Centre in Chicago and the New State Ballroom in New
York. On the home front, their first single “Winter Winds” reached
No.9 in the Irish charts and their second single, “The Natural Thing
To Do”, an original composition by Tommy Swarbrigg also proved
extremely popular.
Drummer Mick
O’Brien, who had trained as a pilot while he was in the band, left
to take up a position with Aer Lingus and was replaced by Alfie
Merrigan. Penny Trent left to join The Skyrockets (as Penny Starr)
and was replaced by Terry Cash who in turn was replaced by Fergus
Burke.
In 1966, a publicity
stunt almost went wrong for The Millionaires. As a novel handout for
fans, they had photos of the band printed on imitation $100 notes
and with Spotlight’s photographer Roy Esmonde in tow, decided to
stage a mock bank robbery in Duke Street. Shocked onlookers dialled
999 when a van pulled up outside the bank and seven men with
handkerchiefs over their faces jumped out! Order was restored
however and the photographs duly appeared in the next issue of
Spotlight!
Jimmy Higgins still
plays in the Galway area and presents a weekly “Those Were The Days”
programme on Galway Bay FM.
All text is strictly copyright of
Irish Bands Archive - it is not to be copied without permission |
