Larry Cunningham from Granard, Co Longford, was as big as they got in Ireland’s ‘ballroom of romance’ era (ask your parents).
With a crowd of over 6000 at one dance, he holds the record for attendance at the famous London-Irish venue The Galtymore Ballroom. Larry’s trademark was his incredibly low voice. No-one could go as low, except for perhaps his hero Jim Reeves. Larry couldn’t believe it when he was invited to share a stage with Jim Reeves in Lifford, Co Donegal during Jim’s 1963 nationwide tour of Ireland. However, Larry remembers that the piano was so bad (full of cobwebs) that Jim Reeves cut short that concert and nearly caused a riot.
Larry saved the day when he stepped up and sang the whole Jim Reeves repertoire in his stead. Later that year Jim Reeves was killed in a plane crash, and ironically this misfortune was the making of Larry Cunningham’s career. Larry’s ‘Tribute to Jim Reeves’ was picked up by King Records, played on Radio Caroline, and Larry is one of the few Irish artists who got into the British charts and sang on BBC’s ‘Top of the Pops’ in 1964 (its first year on TV). But he was soon criticized for ‘living of the back of a dead man’, and had to follow it up with another hit.
He came up with ‘Lovely Leitrim’, an old Irish ballad that his mother used to sing. Larry reckons he was the first showband star to sing an Irish ballad in this popular context. Brendan Bowyer even criticized him for it, but soon saw its huge popular appeal and started singing ballads himself with Boolavogue!
‘Lovely Leitrim’ is still Larry’s biggest hit, and is one of the highest selling Irish singles of all time. It had an appeal for the Irish emigrant, which Larry realised early on, and he went on to record other ballad favourites such as ‘Pretty Little Girl from Omagh’ and ‘Wicklow Hills’.
In spite of major successes, Larry never really left the day job of building/carpentry. He remembers driving home from gigs at 3 or 4 in the morning, and going almost straight to work on a roof.
Larry also remembers arriving in RTÉ to do a TV Christmas Show, and the make-up girl had to scrape building plaster off his face. Larry took some part in local politics, canvassing for Albert Reynolds when he went for TD. In the year 2000 Larry had a triple bypass, so he’s taking it easy now … sort of … in between the odd gig and working cruise, and flooring local houses.
RTÉ TV has been with Larry all the way, and explores its archive to tell his story.