| THE
BACHELORS (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
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.[3] 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.”[4]
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 “Diane”
(1964), “Marie” (1965), “I Wouldn’t Trade You For the World” (1965),
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.[5]
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 music industry. Along with singers like Tom
Jones they found themselves stuck in a decade of Glam Rock, unable
to change with the times. 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.[6]
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” [7] 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[8](available in the US as an import
from Uni Classics Jazz UK[9]), reached #7 in the UK Radio One album
chart 27 July - 2 Aug 2008.[10] Con and Dec Cluskey appeared on TV
and radio to promote the album. |
