Singer Recalls Van In Early Sixties
Belfast Telegraph: No one marked Van out for a future star
Singer remembers his time with quiet sax man in early Sixties
Singer Terry McIlroy chuckles as he recalls the prematurely balding figure he did battle with as the Swinging Sixties arrived in Northern Ireland.
Back then, Terry and the unknown Van Morrison were part of a burgeoning music scene, playing to hundreds of screaming teenagers at now long-gone venues across the province.
More than 40 years later, Van is a household name with worldwide record sales of around 300m — while Terry is first to admit his fame still doesn't extend too far beyond his own home.
“To say I was surprised by Van's success would be an understatement,” said Terry (62).
“When I knew him he was a sax player, not a singer. He just used to stand there onstage.
“I don't think anybody at the time would have marked him out as a future superstar.”
Terry, originally from Holywood, Co Down, now lives near Memphis, Tennessee where he works as a wedding party DJ with his second wife Clare.
But in the early 1960s he was the flamboyant frontman with a short-lived rock and roll band named The Jack of Diamond Five.
Among their leading competitors at the time was the heavily R&B-influenced Them, featuring a youthful Van Morrison on saxophone.
“I remember playing at a battle of the bands competition at a venue called the Queen's Court in Bangor, where Them also performed,” Terry said.
“Van was there with his sax and it's true to say they never won anything and did not stand out at time.
“We also played a Saturday morning gig at the Tonic Cinema in Bangor with Them, so spent quite a lot of time together.
“The funny thing is that I never got to know Van terribly well. We would have a few words, but that was about it.”
The turning point came when Them went to London to record their classic hit Gloria, with Van becoming the band's lead singer and main songwriter.
The band quickly found itself marketed in the United States as part of the British Invasion amid the hysteria of Beatlemania and went on to have a string of hits including the million-seller Here Comes The Night.
It was not until the mid 1960s that Van's solo career took off following a now-legendary recording session in New York from which emerged one of his best-known songs, Brown Eyed Girl, a Top 10 hit in the US charts in 1967.
Terry went on to launch a successful cabaret career under the stage-name of Tony Starr, but struggled as the Troubles escalated.
“I watched a lot of the bands from that era go on to achieve incredible things,” he said.
“Talent is important, but if you have talent and good management you are home and dry.
“The Beatles had Brian Epstein and Van had people spurring him on.
“Having said that, I was able to make a decent living in Northern Ireland, but the Troubles made
things difficult and killed off a lot of the venues.”
Father-of-two Terry's own turning point came in the 1990s when first wife Ann died of cancer at the age of 45 on the very same day that his mother passed away.
“It was a terrible blow and I went to the States for a holiday to try to get over it. While I was there I met Clare and we began to correspond. Eventually, I decided to up sticks and move over there and I've never looked back.
“I'm enjoying life here and the DJ-ing business is going well.
“We've done weddings, house parties, children's pool parties — you name it. We've been doing them all over the place ever since I got here.
“People have asked if I would change places with Van Morrison and the answer has got to be defintely no.
“I last met him in the 1980s and we passed the time of day. I remember thinking that he had not changed much from the Sixties in terms of his personality.”
Asked if he would swap places with Van, Terry said: “With 12 acres of land and a 4,000-sq-ft home, three vehicles and a lovely wife, two beautiful Dobermans, nine months of summer and three months of very mild winter and no debt... I don't think so!”
-Eddie Fitzmaurice
