Joe Dolan

Joseph Francis Robert Dolan (16 October 1939 – 26 December 2007) was an Irish singer, entertainer and recording artist. Chiefly known in Ireland for his association with showbands and for his innovative style and high tenor singing voice, he had a wide appeal with many international fans. His energetic and charismatic stage performances influenced his long standing advertising slogan: "There's no show like the Joe show”.

The only Irish singer to reach number one in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Dolan was a persistent presence in the music charts in Ireland and overseas.

Early life and family

Dolan was born at the County Hospital, now known as the Midland Regional Hospital, Mullingar, County Westmeath on 16 October 1939, the youngest of nine children in a Roman Catholic family. He was orphaned at a young age – his father, a bicycle shop proprietor, died when Joe was ten; his mother when he was nineteen. He sang in school, and his mother had encouraged him to take up the piano. He made his first stage appearance at a talent show held in a marquee on the Fair Green in his native Mullingar.

Voice

Dolan's voice was high with a comprehensive range without the use of falsetto and he made comprehensive use of a technique known as melisma.Casey, 2008, p192 Vocal ranges such as this were not common in the 1960s and 1970s but were later made popular by artists such as Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston, among others. The Irish chat show legend Gay Byrne famously described Dolan’s voice as “butter mixed with honey”.

Career

The Drifters

In 1958, as well as securing his first (and last) "real" job as a compositor in the local '' Westmeath Examiner'' newspaper, Dolan got his first guitar. After learning some skills on the instrument, he and his saxophone-playing brother Ben started to play in local bands. They soon formed a band of their own – The Drifters. Not long afterward, the band was renamed Joe Dolan and the Drifters and finally Joe Dolan and ''His'' Drifters to avoid legal action from the American band of the same name.

The Irish musical landscape in the 1960s was dominated by the showbands. The first single "The Answer to Everything", (previously released as a B side by Del Shannon) was released in September 1964, reaching number 4 in the Irish charts. Dolan and his band were managed by Seamus Casey. In the summer of 1968, however, some of the band left, with Dolan and Casey citing "musical differences" as the reason, although in the official biography by Ronan Casey (Seamus Casey's son) further elaboration includes references to unhappiness about financial issues.

Tours

Dolan's first US tour was in 1965 and followed an offer, which he refused, to play in Las Vegas. Instead, he decided to play a whistle-stop tour of Irish-American venues in places such as Chicago, New York and Boston. An added benefit to this string of engagements was the opportunity to hear American music which hadn't yet been played in the UK and Ireland. The first song gleaned in this fashion was the Jim Reeves song, ''(That's When I see the Blue in Your) Pretty Brown Eyes'' which Dolan released on the Pye label in 1966.

A second US tour in 1967 led an offer to appear in Las Vegas, but he turned it down. Eventually in 1980 he accepted $10,000 a week plus board and lodgings to perform for six weeks over September and October at the Continental Lounge of the Silverbird Casino on the Strip in Las Vegas. Eventually playing 64 shows and selling out most of them, he and his band returned to Ireland to be immediately rebooked for Vegas in January 1981. Although he turned down subsequent offers to return to Vegas, other venues approached him with increased offers, thinking he was merely hunting around for the best deal, but Dolan refused them all. Several other attempts were made through the years to entice him back but he never returned – except on holiday.

In 1978, he became the first Irish artist and one of the first Western acts to tour the USSR. He played 23 concerts in 23 nights in Moscow, Leningrad and the Moldovan capital, Kishinev.

Dolan toured the segregation era in South Africa and was on a UN blacklist for defying the artists' ban.

Recordings

After reforming the band Dolan recorded a song called "Make Me an Island", written by the songwriting duo Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood, for Pye Records in conjunction with Shaftesbury Publishing. The track was a hit in the UK and led to Dolan's first appearance on the BBC's ''Top of the Pops'' which helped to make him "the biggest Irish star in the world at that time". The song eventually became a number one hit in 14 countries as well as reaching Number 3 in the UK, becoming Joe Dolan's only British Top 10 hit and one of only four hit singles Dolan ever had in the UK (all of these hits performed better in the Irish Charts).

In Ireland, the song peaked at number 2 in August 1969, the same week it was Number 3 in the UK. After the recording of ''Make Me An Island'' Dolan was approached and signed by the MAM Agency whose major star was Tom Jones.

Follow-up singles "Teresa" and "You're Such a Good Looking Woman" also made an impact. Other single releases such as "It Makes No Difference" and "You and the Looking Glass" were not big hits at home in Ireland or in the UK, but they were international successes. A collaboration with writers Roberto Danova and Peter Yellowstone in the mid-1970s produced more singles which made little impact on the British domestic market but did well internationally. "Sweet Little Rock 'n' Roller" (1974) was the first of a number of reasonable successes for this team but wasn't a major hit in the UK until later recorded by Showaddywaddy, who had a Top 20 hit with the song in 1979.

His next single, "Lady in Blue" was his biggest ever hit, winning five gold records and selling one million copies. It charted in parts of continental Europe, Africa and South America but not in Ireland or the UK. Further hits including "Crazy Woman", "Sister Mary", "Midnight Lover", "Hush Hush Maria" and "I Need You" followed. Reflective songs such as "If I Could Put My Life on Paper" were a collaborative attempt to show a more maturing artist, whilst definitive versions of songs such as "Danny Boy" maintained a touch of Irish on disc and in concert. In any given month Dolan could be touring the Middle East one week, Australia the next, then South Africa and then back to Europe and Ireland. Further international successes and tours followed, with hits such as "More and More" and "It's You, It's You, It's You".

With his own record label, studio and material Dolan became one of the biggest selling independent artists of the 1990s with albums such as 'Endless Magic' keeping him near the top of the charts. At the end of the decade he refined his voice for the 21st century when he hooked up with EMI for a series of albums (such as ''Joe's 90s'', ''21st Century Joe'' and ''Home Grown'') which saw him tackle more contemporary music from acts as diverse as Oasis

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