Brendan O'Brien:THE APPEAL of Brendan O'Brien, lead singer with the Dixies showband, transcended the decades. To this day the first bars of his best-known hit from the 1960s, Little Arrows, can instantly bring a crowd to its feet.
He was one of the iconic figures of the showband era when more than 450 ballrooms around the country were pulling in huge crowds. The biggest of them could accommodate 4,000 people.
The Dixies were in the premier league of wealthy and successful showbands. They were gifted musicians and not just a copycat band who reproduced other people's hits. They worked harder than most and survived longer than many of their contemporaries.
Brendan O'Brien, a shy young man from a privileged Cork background, was an unlikely star. In 1961, at the age of 20, he got the call to join local heroes, the Dixies, and returned home from London where he had trained as a junior architectural draughtsman.
"We paid his fare over," recalls band leader Sean Lucey. "He sang a few songs with us and we said, 'okay, you've got the job'."
It was the start of a remarkable adventure when the Dixies turned professional and went on the road in September 1961. Brendan O'Brien came on board as a rhythm guitarist but in time took over as lead singer.
Telling his story to author Vincent Power in his bestselling book, Send 'Em Home Sweatin', he recalled: "They found out that I had a good recording voice. I wound up a singer and Joe McCarthy wound up the funnyman. We were really a team. We also had the backbone of the music behind us. It was an ideal combination."
Just as Brendan Bowyer became Ireland's Elvis Presley, so the handsome Corkman personified Buddy Holly in the sweaty dancehalls. His versions of Oh Boy, Peggy Sue, Rave On, and It Doesn't Matter Anymore were all hits in Ireland.
Performing on stage, there was always a sea of outstretched arms and a chorus of screams. "It was dangerous if they caught hold of the mike lead," he recalled. "You'd be whipped off the stage and torn asunder."
He enjoyed a lifestyle of fast cars, boats, houses and holidays in Spain. His first car was a flash Triumph Herald. He bought his mother a Vauxhall Victor. "I called home to surprise her and brought her out to see the new car," he recalled. "She said, 'a bank manager wouldn't be able to afford that.' But I said, 'Mam, I'm earning more than a bank manager'."
The Dixies were rarely out of the charts. Their biggest hit, Little Arrows, went to Number 1 on September 7th, 1968, and stayed in the charts for 20 weeks. It was a huge seller and is still in demand today.
As a result of that success, the Dixies dominated the Spotlight magazine awards for 1968: they were voted Band of the Year; Little Arrows was Record of the Year; Joe McCarthy Showman of the Year; Steve Lynch Instrumentalist of the Year; and Brendan O'Brien Singer of the Year.
They played Carnegie Hall in New York and became only the second Irish band after the Royal to win a lucrative contract in the entertainment lounges of Las Vegas. Brendan was a drinking buddy of actor James Coburn.
When the Dixies returned home in 1970, the showband era was coming to an end. Other bands had split up. The Royal Showband, the flagship from Waterford, was sinking. Brendan Bowyer and his talented partner, the late Tom Dunphy, left to form the Big 8. Brendan O'Brien and Joe McCarthy quit to form a new band, Stage 2, in January 1972. The Dixies never really recovered.
Disaster struck for O'Brien on the evening of October 1st, 1974, as he sang at a charity dance in the Stardust Ballroom in Cork. While singing his third song he reached out to adjust the height of the microphone - it was live and he suffered a severe electric shock. He suffered severe burns on both hands as well as severe thrombosis of the main veins of his body.
He failed in a High Court action against the Stardust in 1979. He appealed the result to the Supreme Court where the case was settled for a small sum.
In Send 'Em Home Sweatin', he said of that time: "When I lost that court case, I lost a lot. I had invested heavily in commercial property. The banks closed in. I had to sell off what I had invested in. In today's terms, I suppose on paper I had close on two million between partnerships and my own investments."
His marriage failed and that remained a source of regret. Gradually, alcoholism became the biggest battle which he fought with great courage. He spent the latter half of the 1980s and the 1990s picking up the pieces of his career. He took part in Dixies' reunion shows and concentrated on solo work in recent years.
Professionally, his achievements are widely acknowledged. He was among the 36 artistes who achieved most hits in the Irish charts from 1962 to 1983. He had 17 - one more than Bowyer.
Privately, his world revolved around his family of five who live in Canada.
Brendan O'Brien, born 1941, died April 3rd, 2008