The Dooleys
Encyclopedia
The Dooleys were a United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 male–female pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 group comprising eight members — six of them family members — at their peak. They achieved several UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 chart
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....

 hits
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

 between 1977 and 1981 including top-ten hits "Wanted", "Love of My Life" and "The Chosen Few".

Early days

The group began in the late 1960s as "The Dooley Family", composed of brothers Jim (vocals), John (guitar
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 and vocals) and Frank (guitar and vocals) with sisters Marie, Anne & Kathy (all vocals). Based in Ilford
Ilford
Ilford is a large cosmopolitan town in East London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It forms a significant commercial and retail...

, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, the group's work was mostly limited to theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

s and hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

s because the three youngest members were still at school and therefore not allowed to perform in pub
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

s. They appeared in variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...

s alongside popular entertainers such as Bob Monkhouse
Bob Monkhouse
Robert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on British television as a presenter and game show host...

, Frankie Howerd
Frankie Howerd
Francis Alick "Frankie" Howerd OBE was an English comedian and comic actor whose career, described by fellow comedian Barry Cryer as "a series of comebacks", spanned six decades.-Early career:...

, Norman Collier
Norman Collier
Norman Collier is a long-serving comedian. He is best known for his 'faulty microphone' routine and for his chicken impressions.- Career and reputation :...

 and Anne Shelton.

In 1972 they were joined by friend Bob Walsh (bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

) who was born in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. His brother Vince Miller was a club compere
Master of Ceremonies
A Master of Ceremonies , or compere, is the host of a staged event or similar performance.An MC usually presents performers, speaks to the audience, and generally keeps the event moving....

 and ran a booking agency with colleague Brian Mills. The pair took the group to Manchester for some trials in Northern clubs
Working men's club
Working men's clubs are a type of private social club founded in the 19th century in industrial areas of the United Kingdom, particularly the North of England, the Midlands and many parts of the South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class men and their families.-...

. They went down well with audiences and were told that they could achieve greater success if they were to base themselves permanently in the North
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...

. As a result they moved to Worsley
Worsley
Worsley is a town in the metropolitan borough of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies along the course of Worsley Brook, west of Manchester. The M60 motorway bisects the area....

, Manchester, during 1973 — without Marie, who was by now pregnant with her first child, and did not feel she could commit to the band.

Following their move to the North, most of the gigs were booked by Jim and Bob (who spent their evenings visiting working men's clubs, selling the act). At that time, major agents
Talent agent
A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses. Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs...

 were not interested in this kind of family group, and it took a lot of work on the band's part to convince them otherwise. In the meantime they continued polishing their act and playing clubs. Eventually, they signed a management deal with Ken Wild; he introduced them to drummer Alan Bogan, who joined the group.

They gained their first recording contract
Recording contract
A recording contract is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist , where the artist makes a record for the label to sell and promote...

 with John Schroeder who signed them to his Alaska Records company in 1974, and released two singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

. The first of these was "Hands Across the Sea" (although its release was delayed due to the song being entered into the Song for Europe contest, to be sung by Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John AO, OBE is a singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA...

).

Early success

In 1975 they were invited to tour in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

. During the tour they recorded a live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...

 at the Rossia Hall in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 (The Dooley Family in Moscow, Live Concert at Rossia Hall, October 29th 1975). This was a couple of years before they had a chart
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....

 hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

 in their homeland, and some three years before Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...

's concerts in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

.

Back home in 1976, The Dooleys (as they had now become) recorded the theme tune for an adult educational programme on BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...

, featuring Bob Hoskins
Bob Hoskins
Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...

, called On the Move. Their live act was also winning them awards in the clubs such as "Best Group" at the 1976 Club Mirror National Club Acts Awards.

Aware that Billy Ocean
Billy Ocean
Billy Ocean is a Trinidad-born English Grammy Award winning popular music performer who had a string of rhythm and blues international pop hits in the 1970s and 1980s. He was the most popular British-based R&B singer / songwriter of the early to mid-1980s...

 was in the UK chart with a song written by Ben Findon, who had also written
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 their first single, they contacted him and he went to see them performing. While there he offered them a recording contract with GTO Records
GTO Records
GTO Records is a British Record label which released many hits during the 1970s. It ran from 1974 to 1981 and mainly concentrated on pop music and disco.-Background:...

.

Chart success

In the summer of 1977 (a decade after they were formed) The Dooleys had their first hit with "Think I'm Gonna Fall in Love With You". The existing members of the family were joined in the summer of 1978 by the youngest member of the group, Helen (keyboards
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...

). Subsequent UK hits gave them the record of being the largest family act ever featured on a hit single.

A string of hits followed with varying degrees of success, and they travelled around Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...

 as one of the busiest live acts around. Their chart run came to a peak in 1979 when they scored their two biggest hits: "Wanted" (#3) and "The Chosen Few" (#7). "Wanted" was also a big hit in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, where it reached #1, and led to them being entered into the Tokyo Music Festival
Tokyo Music Festival
The Tokyo Music Festival was an international music contest that ran from 1972 to 1991. It was organised by the Tokyo Music Festival Association...

 in 1980. They won the "Gold Award" (second place) with the song "Body Language" (a song written by Ben Findon, Mike Myers and Robert Puzey), which also went to #1.

Despite The Dooleys international success, the hits in their homeland started to dry up, though the act were still a major club draw, winning the "Club Mirror Club Acts Award" for Best Group in 1981. Shortly after, Anne and Bob started a family which led to them leaving the group. Helen also decided to leave at the same time, and the threesome departed for a new life in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

.

Anne was replaced by a former Miss Ireland, Vicki Roe (aka Valerie Roe), while Bob's replacement on bass was Gaz Morgan. Prior to their Tokyo Music Festival success, The Dooleys had employed John "Dixie" Taggart as musical director and keyboard player. Taggart took over all keyboards duties after Helen's departure.

Later career

By the mid 1980s, brothers John and Frank, and drummer Alan Bogan, all left the group. They were replaced by a succession of other musicians such as drummer Paul Dean, although Jim and Kathy continued. John, Frank and Alan formed "The New Dooleys" about twelve months after leaving, but by 1992 it was all over, and both groups had retired from performing. In recent years, the Dooley brothers (Jim, John, Joe and Frank) have recorded a collection of new songs which was released early in 2007.

The group reunited for a one-off performance on 6 January 2006, at Helderberg Nature Reserve near Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, South Africa.

More recently Helen, Anne and Bob (now living in Somerset West near Cape Town) have a band called Shiraz.

Singles

Release date Album Record label UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

1974 "Hands across the Sea" Alaska -
"Sha La La Lullaby" -
1976 "On the Move" Beeb -
1977 "Think I'm Gonna Fall in Love with You" GTO 13
"Love of My Life" 9
1978 "Don't Take it Lyin' Down" 60
"A Rose Has to Die" 11
1979 "Honey I'm Lost" 24
"Wanted" 3
"The Chosen Few" 7
1980 "Love Patrol" 29
"Body Language" 46
"In a Riddle" -
1981 "Taken at the Flood" -
"And I Wish" 52
"The Dancer" Epic -
1982 "Will You or Wont You" -
1983 "Flavour of the Month" R'n'R -
1985 "New Beginning
New Beginning (Mamba Seyra)
"New Beginning " is a 1986 single by UK pop group Bucks Fizz. It was a comeback hit, achieving their highest chart placing for four years...

"
New Merseybeat -

Albums

Release date Album Record label UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

1978 Dooleys
Dooleys (album)
Dooleys was the first UK album by British pop group The Dooleys. It was released in 1978.- Background :The Dooleys had been a recording act for four years by this point, but it wasn't until mid 1977 when they scored their first chart hit with "Think I'm Gonna Fall in Love With You", which reached...

GTO -
1979 The Best of The Dooleys
The Best of The Dooleys
The Best of The Dooleys is the second UK album by pop group The Dooleys. It is their first compilation album.- Background :By mid 1979, The Dooleys had scored six hit singles in the UK. The latest single, "Wanted" was the biggest hit of their career and so GTO Records released a compilation...

6
The Chosen Few
The Chosen Few (The Dooleys album)
The Chosen Few is a 1979 album by British pop group The Dooleys.The album contains the singles "Chosen Few" and "Wanted" - both of which were top 10 hits. "Wanted" had already appeared on the group's previous album, The Best of The Dooleys, but appeared here in a slightly extended version...

56
1980 Full House
Full House (The Dooleys album)
Full House is a 1980 album by British pop group The Dooleys.This was the group's third studio album and featured the singles "Love Patrol", "Body Language" and "In a Riddle". As well as this, top 10 hit "Chosen Few" was added to the album, despite it being featured on the group's previous album,...

54
1981 Secrets
Secrets (The Dooleys album)
Secrets is a 1981 album by British pop group The Dooleys. It was their final album in the UK.- Background :By late 1981, the group had released two consecutive flop singles, "In a Riddle" from the previous album and "Taken at the Flood", a stand-alone single, which wasn't considered good enough for...

-
1983 In Car Stereo
In Car Stereo
In Car Stereo is the final album by British pop group The Dooleys. It failed to secure a release in the UK and was only issued in Japan.Following the failure of their previous album and follow-up singles, the group was dropped by Epic Records. The Dooleys set up their own label, R 'n' R Records,...

R'n'R -


In October 2005, a fourteen track CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 featuring their ten UK chart hits, plus four other songs was issued as The Best of The Dooleys. In early 2007, The Dooley Brothers Band Return contained sixteen tracks of new songs, featuring just the three brothers. In 2009, their albums Dooleys and The Chosen Few were released on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

for the first time. The two disc set featured both albums in full, plus bonus tracks.

External links

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