A long and winding road
SINGER GEORGIE GORMAN REFLECTS ON A CAREER THAT HAS SPANNED DECADES WITH CATHAL MULLANEY WHICH BEGAN WHEN HE GOT HIS FIRST GIG AT THE AGE OF 14
HA VIN G started out with a guitar with just one string, Ge orgie Gorman has done quite well f or himself since those days as a youngster int he1960s.
The St Joseph’s Terrace native has added more than a few strings to his musical bow in the time following his first gig, aged 15, all the way back in 1975. Since those heady days of performing in old, well-known Sligo establishments such as Holland’s on Church Hill and Gerry Brennan’s on High Street, things have come so far that now, Georgie is wowing audiences through the medium of technology.
Restricted to performing via Facebook and other platforms during the course of the lockdown, Georgie’s passion for music continues to shine through during a long, entertaining conversation on his life and times last week.
“At the moment, we’re just trying to get through the lockdown and it’s been tough like everybody else, what can you say,” he explains of life over the past couple of months.
In a decorated career, which is still very much alive, Georgie’s talents and unique style has taken him from the bars of Sligo in the late 1970s to venues all around Ireland and beyond. His abilities as a solo artist are well-known, but his willingness to collaborate saw him become part of two bands, including the hugely popular
Zozimus. They became a household name, and regular fixture on the national airwaves, in the 1980s.
So where did the taste for music come from? It is not immediately obvious, Georgie concedes.
“We’d a family of 14 - a lot!” he says of life as a child.
“There is nobody else in the family that plays music to the extent that I do, they would dabble with it, my father was a singer, my mother was a singer, a few of the rest of the family would sing a couple of songs but they’re not really as interested or as involved as I am.
“Back those days, in the streets in St Joseph’s where I grew up, there was very little, you wouldn’t hear or see anybody playing a guitar. We never went to a gig or anything like that, there was nothing like that going on.”
Living with his parents and 13 siblings - five brothers and eight sisters - Georgie’s musical exposure was limited to an odd tune on the house radio, or while out in the street with friends.
“I grew up in St Joseph’s Terrace back in the 1960s. I started playing when I was about ten years of age.
“I came from a very big family so we didn’t have much TV or radio in the house at that stage, money was very scarce.
“But I just think I picked it up I suppose,” “It was very difficult to hear musicians at that stage because the only time you could hear them is if you had somebody with a record player in the street or something like that.
“Obviously, Elvis came along. We’d a big family and you had no TV, we had an old radio up in the corner of the house although the only thing that was on that was RTÉ Radio One and they very seldom played Elvis or The Beatles or anything like that.
“There was a friend of mine who lived across the road, he had a record player and he was buying all The Beatles and Elvis, Johnny Cash, Joe Dolan, all those artists so I started just picking up from there. It was a long road but I got there eventually. I’m still on it.”
“I started off with a guitar with one string. A friend of mine had a guitar, and when he got a new one he gave me his old guitar and there was one string on it so I started banging away on that and eventually I just kept at it and kept plugging away.
“I probably did my first gig when I was about 14. I was self-taught, in those days in my situation, you couldn’t go to a music teacher because your parents couldn’t afford it.
“You just knuckled down and tried to get on with it. I started learning a couple of chords and by the time I was 16 or 17, I started gigging and the rest is history, as they say.”
Georgie was afforded a physical advantage when compared to peers of a similar age. He was tall, and so could gain access to pubs a lot easier than others aged 14 or 15.
Georgie became a familiar sight around the centre of Sligo, heading off with a guitar across his back.
This meant he could begin his fledgling career as a musician in some of Sligo’s famous pubs in the 1970s - a time when he remembers 20, yes 20, pubs along O’Connell Street alone.
“I did my first gig maybe going back to 1975 - I was 15,” he recalls.
“There were a couple of pubs around, I was a tall guy for my age and they thought I was a bit older.
“There was a place called Gerry Brennan’s on High Street, it’s long gone but Harry’s Bar is there now - a bar like that.
“Or maybe the Yacht Inn. One of my favourite bars actually was up on Church Hill, O’Neill’s is there now but that time there was Holland’s Bar.
“Myself and a few of the lads would go up there and we’d play a few tunes, or out to Rosses Point as well.
“It was very, very different to what I’ve experienced in the last say 20 years. Those days, I remember going into pubs where the people were sitting, packed, waiting for musicians to come in.
“I’ve seen 20 pubs in O’Connell Street and I used to play in a lot of them, and people don’t believe me when I say that because they say ‘where were the 20 pubs?’.
“I went through them all - there were pubs
everywhere, especially on O’Connell Street. Then as years went on, in 1988, I headed out to America.
“I played out in America for a couple of months. The trip across the Atlantic presented Georgie with a different style of music and performing.”
Gigs there, he says, would generally go on for four hours - and he intended to return to the States again, but new developments at home saw him return and remain in Ireland, with significant success on the national stage.
“I just got an invitation to go out and play, St Patrick’s Day 1988 , that was the first day I went out. I was supposed to go back to New York again after but then gigs started here and then I got involved with a band here, Zozimus.”
“We were on a thing called RTE ‘Live at Three’, search for a star. That was the X Factor of that time.
“It was a Celtic rock band, and it was myself, Kevin Conlan, Jimmy O’Regan, known as Regan James, Jarlath McTernan, Alan Kelly who plays with Eddi Reader now, and a young fella on drums called John Woods.
“That was the main part of the band, we played everywhere, we were on TV shows all over the place.
“In the north, we used to be on the Jerry Kelly Show in Belfast, Bibi Baskin and all the big kind of shows that were going on. We were lined up for the Late Late Show but that never happened because one of the lads got sick,”
Georgie recalls the days with Zozimus fondly, and though the band parted company after three years, there were plenty of highlights to look back on fondly.
“We used to rehearse in the Southern Hotel and we’d go through all the tunes and we’d have all the lads in with the different instruments. Once we had the tracks and the songs together we headed off on a Thursday until Monday around the country.
“We played a lot in Bad Bobs in Dublin, which was the big gig at the time, 20 quid a head to get into it and it was jammed. So we played there for two or three years. Zozimus lasted for about three years and then it kind of fizzled out as all bands do,”
“But sure before I was out of that I was into another band with a couple of lads, Seamie McGowan, Francie Lenehan, Terry Lenehan and a drummer called Flukey Gorman, a relation of mine.
“The band was called Route 66. That started up about 1993 I think, we played for a couple of years doing the whole circuit and weddings and functions, all that, it was lovely to play with the lads because they’re all world class musicians, we have such a wealth of music in this part of the world.”
In more recent times, Georgie’s association with Kieran Quinn’s theme nights has presented another chance to work with other local talents, and their relationship has blossomed since a chance meeting.
Indeed, they are currently working on another online gig, set to be released on July 16 th.
“I ran into him [Kieran Quinn] ten years ago, he asked me would I play a gig with him and he set up the theme nights where they bring all the musicians from the town together and put them on.
“The first one I did with him was down in Source at the top of O’Connell Street, that’s about ten years ago and I’ve been playing the Hawk’s Well and that and all those kind of gigs ever since with him and with others like Tabby Callaghan, Seamie O’Dowd, Francie Lenehan, Joe Hunt all these different types of people.
“We’re just in the process now of doing another online gig, that’s coming out on the 16 th of July on Facebook and all the media platforms.
“We’re just doing it, this one with Kieran Quinn theme nights, it’s more or less based on original material, original songs.
“I’ve written a song for it and all the other guys have written songs, we’re recording this week in the Hawk’s Well, that’s all recorded and put together, edited and then it goes out on the 16 th of July. So we’re working on that, we’re still at it and I’m still at it.”
The fact that Georgie’s gigs have moved online - out of necessity more than anything else - neatly encapsulates, in one way, the long, winding journey he has been on in his career since those days with a one-string guitar in St Joseph’s Terrace.
“You play some gigs that you’ ll never forget, and then you play gigs that you want to forget in an hour.
“It’s just a feature of it but I suppose through all the years that I’ve been playing, up to now it’s been a great journey.”
WE USED TO REHEARSE IN THE SOUTHERN HOTEL AND WE’D GO THROUGH ALL THE TUNES AND WE’D HAVE ALL THE LADS IN WITH THE DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS. ONCE WE HAD THE TRACKS AND THE SONGS TOGETHER WE HEADED OFF ON A THURSDAY UNTIL MONDAY