The Bachelors - Marie

Added: Oct 15, 2008

From: JBauder1948

Duration: 2:16

The Bachelors is a popular music group, originating from Dublin, Ireland. The founding members of the group were Conleth (Con) Cluskey (born 18 November 1941); Declan (Dec) Cluskey (born 23 December 1942) and John Stokes (Sean James Stokes) (born 13 August 1940). In 1957 they formed their first band together, "The Harmonichords" (also seen as "The Harmony Chords"), a classically styled instrumental harmonica-act.As such they appeared on Hughie Green's 'Opportunity Knocks' on Radio Luxembourg, and the 'Ed Sullivan' TV Show filmed in Dublin as a St. Patrick's Day Special, when they played "Danny Boy," aired March 15, 1959. They also played background music plus featured pieces in 25 week radio comedy series called 'Odd Noises' on Radio Éireann featuring Eamonn Andrews. They changed the name to "The Bachelors" in 1962 at the suggestion of Dick Rowe, A&R at Decca Records. He reportedly recommended the name, The Bachelors, "because that's the kind of boy a girl likes".During the 1960s, they had many successful songs that featured in the music charts in Europe Australia, South Africa, South America, parts of the USSR and the United States. Some of the most successful were: "Diane" (1964), "Marie" (1964), "I Wouldn't Trade You For the World" (1965), and "In the Chapel in the Moonlight". They also appeared in a film with Billy Fury in 1965, called "I've Gotta Horse." In 1965 they had the 'most played juke box track' with 'The Stars Will Remember' from a film they made with then current DJ Sam Costa.The Bachelors' version of "Charmaine", with its descending melody that had already made it an evergreen, jogs along to a country guitar strum and a sprinkling of piano licks. Dick Rowe chose American Shel Talmy as record producer, who went on to produce some of The Kinks' classic rock hits. Another 1927 movie theme song, "Diane", penned by the same songwriters as "Charmaine", Erno Rapee and Lew Pollack, and arranged in the same Nashville-like manner, was released in 1964 and gave the group their first Number one in the UK Singles Chart, as well as an American breakthrough at number two.In 1963 they starred in Its All Over Town with Frankie Vaughan and The Springfields.It is curious to note that four of their hit songs were taken from 1920's movies. Jim Reeves had also previously covered the same four songs, "Charmaine", "Diane", "Ramona" and "Marie" in the 1950s. Throughout the 1960s the Bachelors racked up hit singles and albums and made guest appearances on all the then current TV shows also made their own situation comedy TV series called Under and Over which was a success. They appeared in two Royal Variety TV shows. They also scored the largest viewing audience ever for Bruce Forsyth's Sunday Night At The London Palladium. Live work was carrying them into the 1970s with record breaking theatre season shows and after a successful start to the decade with the album World of the Bachelors hitting the top 5 and a top twenty follow up, the band became less and less dominant of the music industry along with singers like Tom Jones they found themselves stuck in a decade of Glam Rock and unable to change with the times. The records however kept on coming with a move to the Pye label which was a safe haven for easy listening stars like Frankie Vaughan and Max Bygraves it became increasing apparent that their career would follow the path of live shows. By 1979 however without a hit single in almost 12 years the cracks were showing.

Channel: Music

Tags: doo  wop 

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