How a guitar bought for the princely sum of £12 would set the ‘King of Country’ on his way
THE guitar that Big Tom McBride bought in London for IR£12 while still in his teens was probably the best investment of his life. The man regarded the length and breadth of the country as the ‘King of Country’ music had no great plans for a musical career at the time. He had left school at 14 and gone to the UK to work, first in Scotland and then in London.
After buying the guitar with a friend, he picked up some tunes from other Irish lads living in Kilburn and they sang “for the craic”.
“I could have finished up being a farmer or a carpenter but things happen in life. We never set out to be a big band. It’s just one of those things that happen,” he said many years later, talking about his phenomenally successful career.
Born in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, on September 18, 1936, Tom McBride was one of six children, four of whom survived into adulthood. His father Samuel was a Protestant and his mother Mary Ellen was a Catholic.
Recalling his childhood, he remembered the gramophone playing at home, with the family dancing in the kitchen and his father singing.
Big Tom’s name came from his GAA days. He said he did not have much interest in school and regularly mitched.
He was glad to leave formal education and shortly afterwards headed for the UK.
He was in Jersey in the Channel Islands when word came in 1959 that his older brother Willie John had died of meningitis.
There was no one at home to look after the farm, so Big Tom came back to Castleblayney.
Once home he joined the Finncairn Ceili Band, which became The Mainliners as the group moved away from traditional music.
The Mainliners were popular in local dance halls but shot to fame after an appearance on RTÉ.
Big Tom was 30 years old at this point, and within months the band was packing out dance halls, first in Ireland and then also in the UK.
The band was hugely popular across the country right through the 1960s and 1970s.
Perhaps even more so, the band appealed to huge crowds of Irish emigrants in London, Manchester and Birmingham, and Big Tom quickly became known as ‘The King’ of Irish country music.
In the late 1970s he left the band to form The Travellers and by 1980 was given a Gold Award for sales of more than one million records. He returned to The Mainliners in 1989.
The man with the gravelly voice had hit after hit with songs like ‘Four Country Roads’, ‘The Old Rustic Bridge’ and ‘Back to Castleblayney’.
At one point he played 57 shows