TONY KEELING & THE GRADUATES
Lonnie Donegan and Tommy Steele were top of the skiffle craze in the late 1950s and early 1960s in England and a few of those who went on to become part of the showband scene would have started out as teenagers using manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments.
One such group of lads were those went to make up The Graduates, fronted by Tony Keeling, a young man from Skerries in Co Dublin who had been singing since he was a child in national school.
Two rival skiffle bands joined together to form a showband and called themselves the Euphonics and again, like many of the other bands, began to get the real taste for the entertainment business by playing relief before the well known bands of the time.
Gerry Wikham who ran the Pavilion Ballroom in Blackrock, Co Louth took an interest in the band and soon they were the regular relief band in the Pavilion. Tony Keeling was the lead vocals (he also played guitar). The others included George Hand (guitar), Gerry Bradley (sax), Andy Radley (sax), Colm McCormack (trombone), Fergus O’Brien (trumpet) Tommy Coleman (bass) and Paddy Landy (drums).
Soon they were playing more ballrooms and by November 1964 they had taken the big step and turned professional using their new name ‘The
Graduates’. They undertook a residency at their local Red Island Holiday Camp.
January 1965 saw the release of their first single, ‘Kelly’ which had been a hit for American star Del Shannon. It became an immediate hit making it to No 8 in the Irish Top Ten. Within the next twelve months or so, they were being acknowledged as one of the top attractions in the country.
An like most bands, when Lent came around, they had to find work outside of the country and so, undertook their first tour of Irish halls and clubs in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Boston - a tour that would be repeated the following year.
Tony had a win at the Castlebar
Song Contest in 1968, and he and the band secured exposure on TV, being part of ‘The Showband Show’ and ‘Like Now’ on RTE television.
Turning in to the 1970s however, Tony was looking to further his education and decided to enrol in classes at UCD and by 1972, the band was no more. The lads decided to call it quits, seeing the job of rearing their families more important than being on the road five and six nights a week.
The band however, did reform many years later to raise funds for their local Skerries Community Centre.
Tony Keeling and The Graduates also had success with songs such as ‘Edelweiss’, ‘Sentimental Me’ and ‘Crystal Chandeliers’.