Harry McCourt
Derry has always been a city of entertainers and musicians whose talent and versatility were more than a match for their contemporaries in the rest of Ireland. One unique section of performers who made a significant contribution to the city’s musical heritage was the dance bands.
From the formal sit-down bands of the 1940s and ’50s to the flamboyant showbands of the ’60s, they kept the nation’s feet dancing through those decades of change. Harry McCourt recalls with humour and warmth the emergence of the early dance bands and the growth in popularity of the showbands that followed them onto the stages of the world. Packed with rare photographs and first-hand accounts of the music-makers themselves, the book captures the atmosphere of the showband scene that swept the country a generation ago only to fade and disappear just a decade later.
