Original released on LP Decca LK 4827 (mono)
(UK, 1966)
The Bachelors were an Irish pop band of the 1960s consisting of two brothers, Conleth and Declan Clusky, and John Stokes. They began as an instrumental act playing harmonicas and called the Harmonichords or Harmony Chords in 1958. They appeared on Hughie Green's 'Opportunity Knocks' on Radio Luxembourg and on the 'Ed Sullivan' TV Show St. Patrick's Day Special (filmed in Dublin, broadcast 15 March 1959), where they played "Danny Boy." During a tour of England in 1959, they begin to sing and signed to Decca Records. They changed their name to the Bachelors in 1960 at the suggestion of Dick Rowe, A&R at Decca Records, who reportedly recommended the name "because that’s the kind of boy a girl likes." The group then scored their first hit, "Charmaine" (number six in the UK charts). In 1963, they starred in "It's All Over Town" with Frankie Vaughan and The Springfields. The next year they appeared on the TV show "Sunday Night" at the London Palladium, then hosted by Bruce Forsyth: this episode, according to Paul Gambaccini, achieved the largest viewing audience ever for this very popular show. Also in 1964, the Bachelors appeared in a film called “Just for You”, with Billy Fury.
During the 1960s, they had many successful songs in music charts in Europe Australia, South Africa, South America, parts of the USSR, and the United States. Some of the most successful were "Diane", "I Believe", "Ramona" and "I Wouldn't Trade You for the World" (1964); "Marie" (written by Irving Berlin) and "In the Chapel in the Moonlight" (1965). 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. Their last big hit in the UK was a cover of the Paul Simon song "The Sound of Silence" which reached No. 3 in April 1966.
Live work carried them into the 1970s with record breaking theatre season shows, but after a successful start to the decade with the album "World of the Bachelors" hitting the top 5, the band became less and less dominant in the changing music industry. They remained successful recording artists and moved to the Philips label, which contracted easy listening stars such as Val Doonican and The New Seekers. Despite the Bachelors' last chart single being in 1967, they continued to play the cabaret circuit, still maintaining the original line-up until 1984, when there was "a messy split" between the Cluskey brothers and Stokes. Following the split, the Cluskey brothers appeared as "The New Bachelors" and Stokes as "Stokes & Coe"; Stokes allegedly also then appeared as "The New Bachelors" and the Cluskeys now perform as "Con & Dec, The Bachelors".
