WILLIE MAKES A COMEBACK AT 79!
Trumpet player Willie Healy is planning to play with the Flying Carlton Legacy Band 50 years after leaving the original group; (inset) Willie with Jean Geraghty and Joe Leech - the original Flying Carlton.
ONE OF Drogheda's finest trumpet players, Willie Healy, is making a comeback - almost half a century after leaving the Flying Carlton.
Willie (79) has joined the Flying Carlton Legacy Band, a group dedicated to keeping alive the music of one of Ireland's best ever dance bands.
'It is fantastic news. We are delighted,' stated the man behind the Legacy and drummer, Aidan Clarke.
'Willie is still regarded as one of the best trumpet players in the country,' he added.
For Willie it will be a case of turning back the clock on a glittering career.
'I'll tell you, I still practice and work at it, and if the stamina is there I'll certainly give it a go. I'll play a few gigs and see how it goes,' he added.
The Thomas Street man began his musical career with the Drogheda Brass and Reed Band under Jimmy Nash and went on to spend seven years with the Flying Carlton before joining Dermot O'brien and the Clubmen.
He later spent 35 years with the late and great Louis Smith and his band.
' The Flying Carlton was an incredible time,' he explained.
The dance band were in many eyes ' the U2 of their day' - packing out venues all over the place. Known as the Carlton band, they became the first group to fly to a gig, in Hospital in Limerick, and became known as ' The Flying Carlton' as a result.
They sported some of the top musicians about, and featured female singers like Ella Bannon, Joan Godfrey and Bridie Geraghty over the years.
When Willie, a proud Coolagh Street native, left the Flying Carlton and returned to the scene with the Clubmen, he met one of the county's most famous names, Louth 1957 captain Dermot O'brien.
'Dermot was a great man and he gave me a chance after I returned from an illness,' Willie revealed. 'I started on the guitar and then the piano and banjo and then moved to the trumpet and the rest was history.'
Aidan Clarke from the Carlton Legacy sees a big future for the group, with a couple of gigs having already gone well.
An Ulster-based production company is looking at doing a feature on the incredible story of the Flying Carlton while there are hopes that a slot on the Late Late Show will happen sooner rather than later.
'You could say the Carlton name is flying again, and rightly so,' Aidan added.
- HUBERT MURPHY
