People throughout County Roscommon will remember
with fondness a bunch of eager eyed and tuneful locally-based
musicians plying their trade with a showband called ‘The
Jivenaires’ during the 1960s. Two members of this long
disbanded showband, Pat Hoye of Mullingar and Sean Kenny of
Boyle, recently paid a visit to the Roscommon Herald and took a
tuneful trip down their collective musical memory
lane.
By Paul Gunning
With little money coming in, the showband lived
in the hope of making the big break and securing a record deal.
Opportunity knocked on fame’s door once when they recorded
a number of songs in London with Elton John’s producer,
Bernie Topping. The band members went on to enjoy considerable
success in the music business and went their separate ways in the
late 1960s.
Now domiciled in Boston, USA, Pat enjoyed
meeting up with old friends and seeing familiar places throughout
the West and Midlands, while he stayed with his former band
member, Frank ‘Monty’ Montgomery in Forest View,
Boyle. With a hectic schedule of gigs in and around Boston, Pat
Hoye took a month out to chill out and revisit the ‘auld
sod’.
Back in the early 1960s, ‘The
Jivenaires’ were founded and included: Andrew McKeon, Pat
Feely, Christie Regan, Evelyn O’Meara, Danny Murray, Liam
Conroy. Boyle’s equivalent of ‘The Cavern’, was
at the Tennis Pavilion, belonging to the Catholic Club (near the
now the Family Life Centre), where they began to
perform.
Memories of people and places flooded back as
the two musicians reminisced about the likes of Pat Feely (RIP)
of Greatmeadow, Boyle and the jiving in dance-halls. In those
heady days of the 1960s, the Jivenaires played a wide selection
of venues including many outdoor carnivals. Playing covers that
were produced by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Stevie
Winwood and The Who, The Jivenaires received plenty of positive
publicity when the late RTE great, Brendan O’Reilly, got
the band a slot on ‘The Showband
Show’.
Not content with regurgitating the hits of the
day, the band performed their own material and Boyle song-writer,
Gay McKeon was a popular scribe. Both Sean and Pat remember one
tune in particular, entitled ‘The Need’, penned by Mr
McKeon. The band got a good response from audiences when this
number was thumped out.
Along with packing out venues across County
Roscommon, from St Joseph’s Hall, Boyle to Gorthaganny and
Lisacul to name just a few places, the band entertained crowds in
Dublin and the South-East and travelled the length and breath of
England.
When preparing for his recent trip to County
Roscommon, Pat happened upon a once forgotten and dusty memento
of the Jivenaire’s which slipped out by good fortune from
some files the Mullingar-man was searching through. The picture
showed the band playing a Roscommon Men’s
Association’s function at London’s
Metropole.
The name of the agent, Ml J. Devine, Ealing,
London, brought back memories of the latter’s brother,
Willie Devine — who was The Jivenaires agent and manager,
now a solicitor in Dublin. Michael has since returned to live in
Boyle. Willie Devine was their main administration man and
brought the eager young hopefuls around the country from gig to
gig.
However, during 1967, better known as ‘The
Summer of Love’, Pat’s passionate affair with music
saw him leaving Boyle and travelling to Athenry to play with the
‘Swing Time Aces’ — who, for those interested,
Pat advises have a terrific web-site. He then went on to play
with Joe Dolan and the Drifters for 13 years, before emigrating
to the USA where he took a Degree in Music at Boston’s
legendary Berk Lee College in the late 1970s. Returning to
Ireland, he travelled with Joe Dolan’s band to South
Africa, before living in the Emerald Isle until 1985 whereupon he
took up residence in the US.
Performing an eclectic mixture of rock, pop,
blues, country, jazz and Irish music, Pat enjoys the career of a
full-time musician in Boston.
When The Jivenaires, as a musical force, came to
an end, Boyle native, Sean Kenny played with a host of other
bands and was employed as a full time musician up until 1984. He
still performs a one man show in Boyle which he thoroughly
enjoys.
Fond memories of their relatively frugal
existence during the 1960s were recalled and Pat thanks
Sean’s family for keeping many of the Jivenaires in the
Kenny household. Sean Kenny’s father was a driver with the
Roscommon Herald, while Mrs Kenny was often left with the job of
driving away many an excited school-girls, or “pates”
as she termed them, from the Kenny’s front-garden gate at
Marion Road.
Another humorous anecdote has a strong
connection with the Roscommon Herald, this
time in the shape of well known photographer Christy Regan, Green
Street, Boyle, who played with the band for a time. Pat, who
stands at well over six feet tall, assumed responsibility as
bassist when Christy left The Jivenaires. Before Mr Hoye’s
first gig with the Boyle combo he was given Christy Regan’s
outfit. Desperate remedial action was taken when fitting out the
new bassist’s snazzy pants, and having gone to a Boyle
tailor, the innovative craftsman tagged about eight inches of red
material to the bottom of the trousers — much to the
eternal embarrassment of Pat Hoye.
Thanking the people of Boyle for being so good
to them during the 1960s, Pat and Sean hope the showband
audiences of yesteryear will hold fond their happy memories of
the time when The Jivenaires ruled the dance-floors in County
Roscommon.
