Con Cluskey (The Bachelors)

DB1

I've only just found out that he'd died, but it was about three weeks ago. They were pretty big in the 1960's of course, with eight UK top ten singles and four EP's in the top ten also. Also several hits in the USA.

They're related to me by marriage (my wife is their actual relative) and her mum had - which we now have - a huge scrapbook of their press cuttings, plus an album of photos, some of which are of them as young lads practising in my mother in law's mum's (I think) house in Dublin. Somewhere is a cutting from something like Melody Maker in which their record sales from around 1965 were up with the Stones and the Beatles.

They appeared on Sunday Night at the London Palladium - that particular episode drew it's biggest ever viewing audience.

I remember relating a Bachelors story and her relationship with them (she was a cousin) when I did my mother in law's eulogy a few years ago. They're part of our family history really.

RIP Con.

smigeon

My Mum used to love the Bachelors! I used to grudgingly accept that there was something appealing in their harmonies.

In the (now defunct) "Sounds Great" guitar shop near Manchester, there dwelled for a long while a second-hand archtop guitar. It hung out on the wall in the little soundproof booth. I forget the manufacturer, but I think it was Australian (Maton??). The story was that it used to be owned by one of the Bachelors (not sure if it was Con or not). I used to play that guitar every time I went it. It had something about it that kept drawing me in. One day, I said to myself "I'm going to buy that guitar". But when I showed up it had been sold. 

Anyway, that's the nearest I get to a relevant Bachelors story!

RIP Con.

rlw

Not really my music but my parents loved them, so we went to matinee at the Palladium to see them, along with Ken Dodd, Frank Ifield,  Kathy Kirby and the like.

The Bachelors were actually bloody good too. And Ken Dodd, even at three in the afternoon on a wet Sunday, was brilliant.

DB1

Not my music either - we had an open invite to go to Dec's (his brother) house, and I always used to refuse with the excuse 'what if he sings'?

But, yes, they were really good. They were big stars at the time. I'll see if I can find a pic of them rehearsing sometime in the 1950's in  that front room in Dublin.  A typical photo of young local lads with talent, hoping to make a career out of music. Fabulous.

thing

rlw said:

And Ken Dodd, even at three in the afternoon on a wet Sunday, was brilliant.

Did Ken do his usual four hour show? He was at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln once. Came on stage at 7.30 and left at midnight. Never missed a beat, sweated about 10 kilos and had the house in stitches.

Loved the Batchelors, Frank Ifield and a great ivory tinkler called Russ Conway. Massive back in the day but no one remembers him now. Unless you remember him.

rlw

First saw Russ Conway on the Billy Cotton Bandshow, along with Mrs Mills.

And no, Ken Dodd was time limted but still the show finished late.