The first concert I'm sure I ever saw was the Carlton Showband. I was seven years old. This thread has got me listening to them now.
Haha, who are they you say? Ask Great Big Sea (Do you remember the Pig & Whistle? No? Ask you parents. I'm sure Great Big Sea do!)
If they don't acknowlege the Carlton Showband as their MAIN influence, they are lying!! Certainly growing up in Atlantic Canada, this is an influence they surely can not refute.
I saw the Carlton Showband about, oh, 25 years ago with my dearly departed grandmother.
Purely Celtic music, I was always as a young lad, a big fan of Christy McLaughlin's renditon of Black Velvet Band (Sadly, repeated by The Irish Rovers) or The Westmead Bachelor.
Sadly, after aging like we all must do, I found myself listening to Gregory Donahue's version of Danny Boy, while all the time longing for the great Irish tenor voice of Johnny Paterson singing Danny Boy or The Croppy Boy.
As I look upon the first ever calender of my young son, (in his first year of school) I truly realize the ONE AND ONLY REGRET I have in my life. That my grandmother didn't live to see me married or the grandchildren she would have truly cherished.
But, one of the great joys in life I take to this day, is remembering my grandmother, through every version of every song the Carlton Showband band has ever sung.
But, I digress. My five year old son has crawled out of bed. He hasn't been great lately, so I'm making him listen to "I'm getting nuttin' for Christmas"
Happy Holidays!!
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