Shine on ...

Athlone’s Brendan Shine continues to be one of the biggest stars on the Irish music scene, as he has been over the past 50 years.

His unique nice and easy Irish music charm which has entertained three generations has also earned him international recognition.

Brendan has changed with the times by using new technologies with his album sales, but he has continued the same music style that he first learned in South Roscommon in the late 1950s while incorporating new musical influences he picked up along the way.

He’s happy to be back after two years of pandemic restrictions, and he’s currently headlining a nine-day series of Christmas concerts at the Shamrock Lodge Hotel.

“I think that a certain section of the music business did come back as strong as they were previously,” said Brendan. “I’m doing corporate and guest-star work at concerts, for example I’m guesting soon at a Mike Denver concert.”

Brendan and his drummer wingman, Johnny Dawson, have been sharing the same stages for around 50 years.

Brendan came up with the Christmas idea for the afternoon party, which has been running for about five years (bar the two years of the pandemic).

“I was coming near the end of doing dancing shows and I said it almost as a joke to Paddy McCaul, that if he put me on stage at 4 o’clock in the day, I would do it and it would work, and we did two or three concerts the first year, and now we are into the fifth year of the Christmas concerts and we are doing nine concerts,” said Brendan.

Audiences travel to the Shamrock Lodge Christmas gig from all over the island, and last week there were groups of people from Leitrim, Laois, Dublin, Kildare, Longford as well as Westmeath.

“If there is something on that people want, they will go to it,” said Brendan, during a break in the Shamrock Lodge concert last week.

Brendan and his band, including his daughter Emily Shine, on piano, are the headline stars of the show.

Brendan said that he saw such early-evening concerts almost 50 years ago when he was working through the music circuit in America and the UK.

“There was music at garden parties in America and they would take over the grounds of a hotel, and I also played in garden parties in church grounds in England, as well as playing in a lot of parish halls,” he said. “Those were the days before I moved into the big comedy clubs.”

He said that in the US many years ago, audiences would be made up of Irish Americans and many would love the old Irish songs. However he said things are different now and people also love more up to date songs.

“The songs ‘Catch Me If You Can’ and ‘Do You Want Your Auld Lobby Washed Down’ still goes down well with audiences in England,” said Brendan.

He said that around 40 years ago, there were very few artists doing the theatre circuit in the UK, with the exception of the likes of Max Bygraves and The Bachelors, although obviously there were big artists like Elton John in large venues.

“We filled a void and showed that there is a market for everyone’s music,” said Brendan. “Our music seems to be timeless and there are an awful lot of people in Wales and Scotland who could relate to us as Celts and told us that because we are Irish, we are not far removed from them.”

Brendan recorded a few of Athlone tenor John Count McCormack's songs, including ‘Rose of Tralee’ and ‘Tumbledown Shack in Athlone’.

“My father used to always talk about McCormack, and he cycled to the Eucharistic Congress in 1932, with a man called Jack McManus to hear McCormack sing ‘Panis Angelicus’,” said Brendan.

Brendan played the Royal Albert Hall, London in 1976 and also played in Carnegie Hall in New York and was one of the “Three Brendans” who played in Madison Square Gardens.

“The other two were Brendan O’Dowda and Brendan Grace, and I’m the last one alive,” he said.

He regularly gets requests for the music of the local writers, Patsy Farrell (‘Where The Three Counties Meet’) and Tom Moore (‘Carrots from Clonown’, ‘Dudgeons from Knockcroghery’) and those have stood the test of time.

Whilst retaining that tradition, Brendan also embraces the new technologies of music like Spotify.

“People will always find their music, and there is a change in music today because a lot of it is downloaded,” he said.

He also said that audiences are always been replaced, and that over 50 years ago, he was playing for young people who now are long grown up and have their own grandchildren.

“The youngsters know every one of the songs and tell me that their granny made them sit and listen in the car,” he said. “They will follow on with the culture they were used to. My ‘Grandad’ song appeals to children, to married couples and to grandparents.”

Another popular song of Brendan’s from the past 20 years, is ‘I Met Her in the Galtymore’.

“There are so many people have come up to me saying that somebody in their family met their wife or husband in the Galtymore in London,” he said.

The Brendan Shine band was with a good record company in the UK in the 1980s and 90s and he made many radio and television appearances including on BBC’s Pebble Mill at One and the smash hit Saturday night ITV show, 3-2-1 starring Ted Rogers.

“I sang the song ‘My Son’ on 3-2-1 and that was written by Les Reed, (who wrote ‘Delilah’ and ‘It’s Not Unusual’ for Tom Jones) and I worked with him in studio and he was playing and singing ‘My Son’ and I asked him if I could record it, and it became a semi-hit for me in England,” said Brendan.

Brendan has recorded five No 1 singles, and many Top 10 hits, and over 50 music albums.

He also appeared on another hit ITV show, ‘Highway with Harry Secombe’ and was featured on BBC Radio by Terry Wogan, Gloria Hunniford, Ray Moore and Derek Jameson.

“I’ll be going back into studio next week because I need to record some new material and plan to record an album with my daughter Emily, who is my bandleader,” said Brendan. “I get a lot of requests for Emily to sing a few songs.”

Emily replaced Brendan’s late brother, Owen Shine, who died a number of years ago. Brendan lost three other siblings, Maureen, Annette, and Colm in the past three years.

“Every family gets a dart and the one sure thing in the future is, everyone is going to have bereavements and die,” he said.

Brendan is married to Kathleen (Kildea) and the couple have two daughters, Emily and Philippa. Brendan and Kathleen have six grandchildren, Esmae, John-Brendan, Senan, Amelia, William and Xavier.

Brendan will be going to Alaska next year on a music cruise and has other commitments in Spain and Portugal. Later in the year, he will do a summer season in the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney.