The Bachelors

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The Bachelors are a popular music group, originating from Dublin, Ireland.

Career

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 The Harmonichords, they appeared on Hughie Green's 'Opportunity Knocks' on Radio Luxembourg^[1] and on the 'Ed Sullivan' TV Show St. Patrick's Day Special (filmed in Dublin, broadcast 15 March 1959), where they played "Danny Boy."^[2] They also played background music plus featured pieces in a 25 week radio comedy series called 'Odd Noises' on Radio Éireann featuring Eamonn Andrews.^[1] They changed their name to "The Bachelors" in 1962 at the suggestion of Dick Rowe, A&R at Decca Records, who reportedly recommended the name "because that’s the kind of boy a girl likes."^[3]

During the 1960s, they had many successful songs in music charts in Europe Australia, South Africa, South America, parts of the USSR, and the United States. Some of the most successful were "Charmaine" (1963); "Diane", "I Believe", "Ramona" and "I Wouldn't Trade You For The World" (1964); "Marie" and "In the Chapel in the Moonlight" (1965). 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.^[1] Their last big hit in the UK was a cover of the Paul Simon song 'The Sound Of Silence' which reached No. 3 in April 1966.

Live work carried them into the 1970s with record breaking theater season shows, but after a successful start to the decade with the album World of the Bachelors hitting the top 5, the band became less and less dominant in the changing music industry. They remained successful recording artists and moved to the Pye label, which contracted easy listening stars like Frankie Vaughan and Max Bygraves. Despite their last chart single being in 1967, they continued to play the cabaret circuit, still maintaining the original line-up until 1984, when there was "a messy split" between the Cluskey brothers and Stokes.^[4]

Following the split, the Cluskey brothers appeared as "The New Bachelors" and Stokes as "Stokes & Coe", Stokes allegedly also then appeared as "The New Bachelors" ^[5] so the Cluskey's now perform as "Con & Dec The Bachelors"

In 2008 a compilation CD, "I Believe - The Very Best of The Bachelors," featuring the 60s hits together with two new songs recorded by Con and Dec Cluskey, was released through Universal who had acquired the Decca catalogue^[6](available in the US as an import from Uni Classics Jazz UK^[7]), reached #7 in the UK Radio One album chart 27 July - 2 Aug 2008.^[8] Con and Dec Cluskey appeared on TV and radio to promote the album.

Film and television

Throughout the 1960s the Bachelors racked up hit singles and albums and made guest appearances on all the then current TV shows^[9], and appeared in two Royal Variety TV shows.^[10] In 1963 they starred in Its All Over Town with Frankie Vaughan and The Springfields. In 1964, they starred alongside Bob Hope in the TV show Sunday Night at the London Palladium, then hosted by Bruce Forsyth; this episode, according to Paul Gambaccini, achieved the largest viewing audience ever for this very popular show.^[10]

The Bachelors appeared in a film with Billy Fury in 1965 called I've Gotta Horse and in 1971 they starred in a situation comedy TV series called Under and Over, where they played 3 Irish navvies working on the London Underground. Six episodes were broadcast on BBC One. ^[11].

The Songs

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.

It is curious to note that four of their hit songs were taken from 1920s movies. Before The Bachelors, Jim Reeves had also covered the same four songs, "Charmaine", "Diane", "Ramona" and "Marie," in the 1950s.

Single releases

Note: This information from Reg Stevens' website on classic 45 RPMs.^[12]

Extended Play (EP) releases

For a definition of an Extended Play see Extended play

Selected albums

• The Bachelors + 16 Great songs No.2 (1964)
• More Great song Hits No.15 (1965)
• Hits of the 60's No.12 (1966)
• Bachelors girls No.24 (1966)
• The Golden All Time hits No.19 (1967)
• The World of The Bachelors No.8 (1968)
• The world of Vol2: No.11 (1969)
• 25 Golden Greats No.37 (1979)
• I Believe - The Very Best of The Bachelors (Decca, 2008), No. 7 in UK^[6], No. 2 in Rep. Ireland
• The Very Best of The Bachelors (Spectrum, 2008)

There are 70 + albums on release in the UK.^[13]
This discography does not include hit releases outside Great Britain.

References

This article cites its sources but does not provide page references. You can help to improve it by introducing citations that are more precise.

• Sean Helferty and Raymond Refausse. Directory of Irish archives. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1995.

External links

• Con & Dec - The Bachelors Con & Dec's Official UK web-site
• The Bachelors featuring John Stokes John Stokes' Official UK web-site
• John Stokes - The Truth Con & Dec's version of the breakup and aftermath
• Statement John Stokes' version of the break-up and aftermath
• YouTube: Original members performing 'Chapel in the Moonlight'
• 'Diane/I Believe' 'This Morning' July 2008 clip of 'Diane/I Believe' with Con and Dec