The Cruisers Story (1969-1972)
Photo Gallery -
Band Lineups -
Discography
- Audio samples -
Where Are They Now?
The Story
Coming out of Omagh, Co. Tyrone, The Cruisers hit the road
in late 1969 as far as we can tell. The five piece outfit advertised themselves as
"one of the only 5 piece bands to make it on
the ballroom circuit." Although this wasn't necessarily true, they
were part of a rare breed. The original lineup, listed in a
November, 1970 article in the Evening Herald, was Larry Sheeran
(vocals), Shay McIlwaine (guitar), Des Cannon (bass0, Oliver
Loughran (drums) and Don Casey (keyboards). As ou can see from the
advert below (from the same paper) they often called themselves as
the "Cruisers Showband" as well as "Larry and the Cruisers."
Drummer Oliver Loughran was also the band's manager.
The band played a mix of pop and
country, as most bands did with Des handling country vocals and
Larry the pop side of things. In 1971, it appears they started top
hit their stride although from newspaper archives it still appeared
most of their gigs were across Ulster with the odd trip across the
border to the South.
They also did
release at least one single, "Always Goodbye" on the Hit label in
June, 1971. It didn't make tyhe charts but airplay helped extended
their reach further south than previously. By mid 1972, they were
playing gigs across the northern half of the country. In late 1972
they launched a gimmick where they took a band photo with their eyes
closed with a pitch to "wake up to the Cruisers."
It didn't get them very far and in fact, lead to some negative
comments in the press (see below). One way or another we don't think
the bands lasted through the end of 1972.
Researching a
band called the Cruisers was not easy as their name was often
confused with "cruising the Shannon," "holiday cruises" and "Dr.
Conor Cruise O'Brien." We did
discover than in 1973, Oliver Loughran had given up performing and
was managing the Rascals band from
Letterkenny.
If you can add anything to their
story, please send us an email.
More to come.....
click on thumbnails for full image
