The Brose Walsh Band pictured in the 1950s.

Brose Walsh Band now in its 70th year

TUESDAY last (December 27) marked the 69th anniversary of the launch of the legendary Brose Walsh Orchestra, making them Ireland's longest established touring band with an unbroken family tradition stretching back almost seven decades.

The success story started when Brose made his debut in the Horseshoe Hall at Frenchill, outside Castlebar, on Monday, December 27, 1937. Ever since, the band has been on the road year after year without a break, writes Tom Gillespie.

Brose himself died on April 10, 1995, aged 75 years, but his three sons, Tomas, James and John Noel, are still members of the famous outfit.

The story of Brose’s rise to fame started when he was 10 years old, on the occasion of a ‘Yankee wake’ in his Lisaniskea, Belcarra, house prior to his sister Nora and brother Jimmy leaving for America.

Brose was enthralled with the music, singing and dancing in the kitchen as he lay in his bed. When the party was over and everyone lay asleep, Brose arrived in the kitchen early the following morning and to his great joy he saw a melodeon which was left in the house by Mrs. K. Jennings, Logakilleen.

To the discomfort of other members of this family, he set to work with the melodeon and after practising day and night for the few days, the instrument having been left in the house, he soon learned to play a few tunes.

Impressed by his interest in music, his parents purchased an accordion for him and it was then that his real musical career began.

Musical instruments and musicians were few at the time, and even though he was only a young boy, there was soon a big demand for him to play at weddings and country house dances, which were all the rage at the time. The reward he received for playing was tea - every hour of the night.

His son Tomas took up the story: “After leaving school he was apprenticed to a carpenter in Michael Gibbons' workshop in Frenchill and while he was serving his apprenticeship he practised on the accordion during mealtimes and every spare moment he had.

During that time he also found time to practice on the violin and it was not long until he proved himself an expert at traditional Irish music. He was also a light baritone, his pleasing voice making him a hit everywhere he sang.

Brose was one of the carpenters employed at the Horseshoe Hall when it was in the course of erection, and it was the first hall that the wheel of fortune moved in his favour.

The Horseshoe Hall was at the time a very popular centre for dancing and on December 27, 1937, when a band from Dublin failed to turn up for the dance, Brose, who was 18 years old at the time, was called on to come to the rescue. With his accordion, violin and a set of drums, he made a one-man debut. The dances then were from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.”

This proved such a success that he was booked to play at a dance in Cong the following Sunday.

Tomas continued: “On this, his second outing, he had bigger ideas and his one-man band was augmented by three accordions, violin and drums. His third appearance with his full orchestra was also in the Horseshoe Hall and over 900 patrons turned up to hear him.”

The band played for a number of years in country dance halls around Mayo and Galway and he gradually continued to build up his band by adding saxophones, trumpets, etcetera.

Brose himself learned to play the sax, which he generally played as leader of the band.

Tomas continued: “From 1939 to 1945 he had a job driving a CIE truck, bringing turf from the bogs during the Emergency. He still kept the music going. There were a lot of little dance halls around and the house dances started to fade out. The Archbishop of Tuam had a big car which Brose bought and put a trailer behind it to bring the gear. Later he got a jeep with a roof rack on top for the gear.

In 1947, just after the war, he got his first big break when he was engaged to play nightly at the County Cinema in Castlebar, where there was a special variety show as part of the programme. With his nightly performance it was not long until he built up a first class combination and it was from then onwards that he started fulfilling big engagements all over the country.

While the County Cinema booking was perhaps his first big break, it was there that he also got his first big setback.

He was just after spending £500 on purchasing a complete new outfit, which included amplifiers, a set of drums, new saxophone and accordion. Some nights they would have another engagement after the cinema. But one night when they had not he left the gear in the cinema and the building was burned to the ground and everything was destroyed in the fire. Through a defect in insurance, there was no compensation and it was a question of back to scratch.

His brother-in-law Willie Armstrong organised some bit of a do in America at the time and he sent him home a saxophone, a top of the range Martin Tenor, to get him going. My father blew it for years. Now my son Alan is still blowing it. It is one of the best saxophones you can get.

Dances were also held in the dining hall in the military barracks. The whole town knew that the fire was putting a man out of business and Brose was given a night to run a dance in the dining hall. Other musicians helped out - Stephen Garvey gave his PA for the night. He got enough money out of it to buy a new system and get back on the road again.”

 

*More on the Brose Walsh Band story in next Tuesday's print edition