Tweet
Alright, I am going to get laughed at with regards to this one, but I actually thought they were a great group.
According to the Guinness Book of Hit Singles, the were a family group hailing from Manchester with the most number of members (seven of them, methinks?) Of course, not all of them performed at once on their hits. I suppose they could have been as big as the Brotherhood of Man if they tried, but their lack of number one hits was probably one reason why they weren't as big as they were in the late 1970s. Some even thought that they would be the British Jacksons or Osmonds. Not quite. If only I had been ten years older...
Their 1981 hits (towards the end of their chart run) almost sounded sub-ABBA, and I bet that Eurovision would have been a great showcase for them if they had a chance - I know that up to around 1982 they were still around on television, mostly doing Wednesday 8.00 pm shows like Starburst. After that, they appeared around 20 years later on After They Were Famous which says a lot.
David Hamilton interviewed Jim Dooley on the radio a few years ago and we found out that they were formed in 1967 and turned professional in 1974 - I don't think that they got prominence as a result of Opportunity Knocks or New Faces (did they?), but just a case of "right time, right place". One family member happened to be called Tom Dooley - a namesake of the Kingston Trio's 1958 song. Jim's father was a pianist and his mother was an opera singer, so one can see where the musical influence came from originally.
I found a couple of songs on some old Contek C90 tapes - Love of My Life was one of them - that should have been the Christmas 1977 number one, (with sincere apologies to Sir Paul McCartney and Wings of course), but they had settled for number nine instead. It gives me a warm and magic glow every time I listen to it - I felt like that as a child, and things haven't changed over 35 years on - it feels like a perfect world when one listens to it - being in love and all that. I have assumed that it must have been a Christmas hit as it was in the charts in December of 1977 and also the fact that radio stations hardly ever play it, unless it is part of Pick of the Pops or Name The Year features. I suppose it is seen as the trainspotting or the Skoda driving of pop music these days but I don't care.
Wanted was another one on another tape that felt magical, and so was The Chosen Few. Listened to Honey I'm Lost and I loved it. I doubt that Steps was a more recent version of them - no they were not.
Around ten years ago, with no shame I got a Best of the Dooleys CD off Amazon and I just love listening to it. I suppose that my listening tastes to music stem from the fact that I had elderly parents who used to have things like that on the radio.
I very much doubt that most people on here share my unusual tastes towards music like this, but I thought that they were great. If I wanted to listen to them, or indeed George Formby singing about being a window cleaner, it is certainly my own prerogative at the end of the day.
According to the Guinness Book of Hit Singles, the were a family group hailing from Manchester with the most number of members (seven of them, methinks?) Of course, not all of them performed at once on their hits. I suppose they could have been as big as the Brotherhood of Man if they tried, but their lack of number one hits was probably one reason why they weren't as big as they were in the late 1970s. Some even thought that they would be the British Jacksons or Osmonds. Not quite. If only I had been ten years older...
Their 1981 hits (towards the end of their chart run) almost sounded sub-ABBA, and I bet that Eurovision would have been a great showcase for them if they had a chance - I know that up to around 1982 they were still around on television, mostly doing Wednesday 8.00 pm shows like Starburst. After that, they appeared around 20 years later on After They Were Famous which says a lot.
David Hamilton interviewed Jim Dooley on the radio a few years ago and we found out that they were formed in 1967 and turned professional in 1974 - I don't think that they got prominence as a result of Opportunity Knocks or New Faces (did they?), but just a case of "right time, right place". One family member happened to be called Tom Dooley - a namesake of the Kingston Trio's 1958 song. Jim's father was a pianist and his mother was an opera singer, so one can see where the musical influence came from originally.
I found a couple of songs on some old Contek C90 tapes - Love of My Life was one of them - that should have been the Christmas 1977 number one, (with sincere apologies to Sir Paul McCartney and Wings of course), but they had settled for number nine instead. It gives me a warm and magic glow every time I listen to it - I felt like that as a child, and things haven't changed over 35 years on - it feels like a perfect world when one listens to it - being in love and all that. I have assumed that it must have been a Christmas hit as it was in the charts in December of 1977 and also the fact that radio stations hardly ever play it, unless it is part of Pick of the Pops or Name The Year features. I suppose it is seen as the trainspotting or the Skoda driving of pop music these days but I don't care.
Wanted was another one on another tape that felt magical, and so was The Chosen Few. Listened to Honey I'm Lost and I loved it. I doubt that Steps was a more recent version of them - no they were not.
Around ten years ago, with no shame I got a Best of the Dooleys CD off Amazon and I just love listening to it. I suppose that my listening tastes to music stem from the fact that I had elderly parents who used to have things like that on the radio.
I very much doubt that most people on here share my unusual tastes towards music like this, but I thought that they were great. If I wanted to listen to them, or indeed George Formby singing about being a window cleaner, it is certainly my own prerogative at the end of the day.
Comment