22 March 1965
Don’t worry, Brendan Bowyer fans: he hasn’t left The Royal Showband (yet). Tom Dunphy was their bass player and had already done vocal duties with them. So, think of this as their equivalent of George or Ringo singing one.
‘If I Didn’t Have A Dime (To Play The Jukebox)’ was a B-side for Gene Pitney, and Dunphy gives a fair approximation of Pitney’s nasally singing style. Bits of Waterford accent crop up here and there, and the guitar that sounds like a vibraphone lends a ’60s pop vibe to this record’s production. Otherwise the quaint Americana of the title is sufficient notice of another Irish showband chart-topping single which is fundamentally faithful to reproducing the exotica of US country-pop for the parish halls of provincial Ireland.
