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The Bachelors

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The Bachelors
Origin	Dublin, Ireland
Genre(s)	Country Music Harmony
Years active	1957 – current
Label(s)	Decca, Philips
Website	thebachelors.co.uk
Members
Con Cluskey Declan Cluskey John Stokes
Former members
see note below

The Bachelors is a popular music group, originating from Dublin, Ireland.

1 Career
2 The Songs
3 The split and beyond
4 Hit singles
5 References
6 External links

Career

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 novelty instrumental harmonica-act. As such they appeared on Hughie Green's 'Opportunity Knocks' on Radio Luxembourg ^[1], and the 'Ed Sullivan' TV Show filmed in Dublin as a St. Patrick's Day Special, when they played "Danny Boy," aired March 15, 1959. They also played background music plus featured pieces in 25 week radio comedy series called 'Odd Noises' on Radio Éireann ^[2] featuring Eamonn Andrews. They changed the name to "The Bachelors" in 1962 at the suggestion of Dick Rowe, A&R at Decca Records. He reportedly recommended the name, The Bachelors, "because that’s the kind of boy a girl likes". During the 1960s, they had many successful songs that featured in the 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" (1964), "I Wouldn't Trade You For the World" (1965), and "In the Chapel in the Moonlight". They also appeared in a film with Billy Fury in 1965, called "I've Gotta Horse." 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.^[3]

The Songs

The Bachelors' version of "Charmaine", with its descending melody that had already made it an evergreen, jogs along to a country guitar strum and a sprinkling of piano licks. Dick Rowe chose American Shel Talmy as record producer, who went on to produce some of The Kinks' classic rock hits. Another 1927 movie theme song, "Diane", penned by the same songwriters as "Charmaine", Erno Rapee and Lew Pollack, and arranged in the same Nashville-like manner, was released in 1964 and gave the group their first Number one in the UK Singles Chart, as well as an American breakthrough at number two. It is curious to note that four of their hit songs were taken from 1920’s movies. Jim Reeves had also previously covered the same four songs, "Charmaine", "Diane", "Ramona" and "Marie" in the 1950s.

The split and beyond

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the for details. (September 2007)

In 1984 there was a falling out between the members of The Bachelors, and John Stokes was asked to leave the band at a meeting held in The Eccentric Club in London.

After a High Court case, John Stokes was not allowed to use any name containing the word Bachelors whilst Con & Dec were allowed to use any name that contained the word Bachelors [except The Bachelors alone or The Original Bachelors] [ref. same High Court Undertaking]. This was contained in a legal undertaking which John Stokes signed with Con & Dec Cluskey when he bought the company 'Bachelors Ltd' from them. Meanwhile Con & Dec recruited a new member, Peter Phipps, and continued until 1993 as The New Bachelors.{{ In 1993 John Stokes reappeared with a new group also calling himself 'The New Bachelors' so the Cluskey Brothers changed their name to ‘Con and Dec, The Bachelors’ to not confuse the public. In 2006 Con & Dec tried to take John Stokes to the High Court to stop him using the name The Bachelors but, due to Dec being overseas, the forms had not been filled in properly, and the court case was not allowed to take place. As of 2007, both bands are still touring. Stokes's group, now called "The Bachelors" includes singer Jonathan Young and guitarist Kevin Neill (formerly of the Karl Denver Trio) and the Cluskey brothers as "Con and Dec, The Bachelors."