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Big Tom - off to the big gig in the sky

  • 17-04-2018 8:45am
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,721 ✭✭✭✭


    Big Tom - Irish Country Singer has died at 81

    Not my cup of tea, but was quite popular nonetheless.

    http://www.thejournal.ie/big-tom-death-3961868-Apr2018/

    GN4_DAT_7128469.jpg--.jpg

    Having seen some of his story on RTE (Stetsons I think), he appears to have led a great life in the music industry, and has a huge family.


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,365 ✭✭✭✭McMurphy


    Seen him on the late late show a while back, he looked pretty frail then, and unfortunately my initial thoughts turn have been proven right.

    He lived a fairly long and successful life, seems to have been pretty much regarded as legendary by his peers in his particular music industry.

    Rip.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,760 ✭✭✭Effects


    His music was mediocre. I only say him once though, back in the early nineties. He was playing on the back of a truck in Tobercurry.
    Lovely dude though, as was the rest of his band.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 969 ✭✭✭Greybottle


    Absolute Gent. R.I.P.

    Not my style of music, my mother was a big fan of him, she often met him working as a barmaid in the 1960's in London, didn't see him for over 30 years and he came up to her one day in Howth harbour and said he recognised her. Seemed to be a very decent skin by all accounts,.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,841 ✭✭✭buried


    R.I.P. Big Tom

    Wasn't a fan myself but my Mam is huge fan. Always upsetting when a music artist you like goes one step beyond but at least you still have the tunes.

    "You have disgraced yourselves again" - W. B. Yeats



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,348 ✭✭✭✭super_furry


    What'll the Mainliners do now?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,813 ✭✭✭Noveight


    A gentle giant by all accounts, will be remembered for years to come.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ytpe2r5bxkn0c1


    He pulled a decent pint but I couldn't stand his music. A nice man to chat to in the bar.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,423 ✭✭✭✭Outlaw Pete


    Remember my Dad playing this one in the house a lot when I was a kid and singing it to himself a lot to of course.

    Which I hated, I won't lie.

    RIP.




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,758 ✭✭✭Pelvis


    Seen him on the late late show a while back, he looked pretty frail then, and unfortunately my initial thoughts turn have been proven right.

    Well done on predicting an octogenarian would die soon. Got the lotto numbers there by any chance?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 746 ✭✭✭aziz


    A story I heard years ago that I would love it to be true is that when big Tom got one of his first gigs in New York.
    Tom and his band,the Mainliners were booked to play a huge gig in somewhere like the radio city music hall.
    "Mainlining" is a term for shooting up heroin so the place was jammed with people expecting to see a grateful dead type band,apparently there was a riot when a bunch of guys wearing pale blue suits walked out on stage and started singing "four roads to glenamaddy"


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,845 ✭✭✭✭Beechwoodspark


    Great voice and stage presence. Ruled the airwaves in the 70s country boom. He was the main man with the main liners.

    RIP Big Tom.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,809 ✭✭✭✭freshpopcorn


    RIP Big Tom.

    He was meant to have being a nice man.

    I wonder will The Late Late Country music special go ahead?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,236 ✭✭✭deandean


    R.I.P.
    He's on that road to the churchyard where his mom and daddy lie.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,239 ✭✭✭physioman


    Met him once. Giant of a man . He couldn't sing but apparently his music had great timing. Caught for tax evasion but generally loved. Could be the biggest funeral up north since Bobby sands.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,104 ✭✭✭Trigger Happy


    Four country roads was a bit of a sound track on our local radio for a few years in the 80s.

    RIP Big Tom, he will be walking the 'one country road to the churchyard where my Mum and Daddy lie'


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,243 ✭✭✭C__MC


    “Your going with out the same way you came in”

    No truer words and a great tune

    RIP


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,243 ✭✭✭C__MC


    physioman wrote: »
    Met him once. Giant of a man . He couldn't sing but apparently his music had great timing. Caught for tax evasion but generally loved. Could be the biggest funeral up north since Bobby sands.

    Last time I checked Monaghan was part of the republic


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,014 ✭✭✭✭GBX


    Not a country music fan, a very friendly and nice man. RIP


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,357 ✭✭✭✭Birneybau


    Greybottle wrote: »
    Absolute Gent. R.I.P.

    Not my style of music, my mother was a big fan of him, she often met him working as a barmaid in the 1960's in London, didn't see him for over 30 years and he came up to her one day in Howth harbour and said he recognised her. Seemed to be a very decent skin by all accounts,.

    Can't picture Big Tom as a barmaid but I suppose they were different times


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,357 ✭✭✭✭Birneybau


    C__MC wrote: »
    “Your going with out the same way you came in”

    No truer words and a great tune

    RIP

    He'll be buried through a vagina?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,239 ✭✭✭physioman


    C__MC wrote: »
    Last time I checked Monaghan was part of the republic

    Did I say northern Ireland? North includes all 9 Ulster counties


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,272 ✭✭✭✭Standard Toaster


    RIP Big Tom.

    I can't believe his mother is still alive.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,305 ✭✭✭✭branie2


    Four roads to Heaven


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 87,485 ✭✭✭✭JP Liz V1




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 969 ✭✭✭Greybottle


    I alos liked his cameo as Tucker McElroy lead singer of The Good 'Ole Boys and driver of the Winnebago in The Blues Brothers.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,450 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    What'll the Mainliners do now?


    Wonder who Big Tom is at this stage probably.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,725 ✭✭✭✭blueser


    Seemingly a decent fella, going by some of the comments on here. I can't stand that whole "Country and Irish" genre, so I'll keep my comments on his music to myself. The local radio station down here will be in mourning for a week.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,212 ✭✭✭✭ELM327


    RIP..
    Still got the greatest hits CD in the car. Ain't no man found a way, of beating father time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,824 ✭✭✭✭Panthro


    He put Glenamaddy on the map. Parents were big fans.
    Another fallen giant.
    RIP Big Tom


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,526 ✭✭✭dublinman1990


    I only heard about this on the 6.1 news earlier. A lot of my many older relatives are big fans of him and his music. They probably be very sad to hear of his passing today. I'm not a big fan of his music though and I never met the man in person to know what he was like. But he has left a great legacy of country music behind him for all of his fans to enjoy throughout his long career. R.I.P. Big Tom.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,394 ✭✭✭Pac1Man


    2016 strikes again. Relentless so it is.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,285 ✭✭✭Summer wind


    Lovely man that left very happy memories. May he Rest In Peace.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,641 ✭✭✭✭bodhrandude


    My parents were big fans and he was popular up North West of the country, I'm not a fan myself more into pure drop trad, electronica, rock and other stuff. But I'll always remember this story from his gig in New York, where folk misinterpreted the title of his group The Mainliner's, it always gives me a laugh. RIP to an era of my folk's time. http://connachttribune.ie/when-it-comes-to-talk-its-all-in-the-way-you-tell-em-987/

    If you want to get into it, you got to get out of it. (Hawkwind 1982)



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 755 ✭✭✭NAGDEFI


    RIP Big Tom.

    He was meant to have being a nice man.

    I wonder will The Late Late Country music special go ahead?

    My mam and dad met dancing to Big Tom in some dancehall exoticly called 'The Ritz' in Carlow. I mightn't be here only for him..whether that's a good or a bad thing:)

    RIP Big Tom McBride.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 755 ✭✭✭NAGDEFI


    Pac1Man wrote: »
    2016 strikes again. Relentless so it is.

    I think it's the older we become, the more we know entering their twilight years. Though in 2016 a lot like George Michael and Prince were in their 50s and Bowie, Alan Rickman 69 etc. A lot relatively young alright.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 755 ✭✭✭NAGDEFI


    Joanna Donney did the weather on 6 one. Wonder will she be on the 9 O'clock weather.

    She of the many tributes to stars.. 'no rain, purple or otherwise' for Prince. Doubt she's into Big Tom's music :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,230 ✭✭✭TheRiverman


    I hate the awful Irish Country music that he performed,but he had a lot of fans and by all accounts he was a very nice man.May he and his wife who died in January rest in peace.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,231 ✭✭✭Jim Bob Scratcher


    Not a fan of his music by any means, but the stories I heard about him going out of his way to visit ill fans, you have to really admire that. Very humble man too I believe

    RIP


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,861 ✭✭✭Mysterypunter


    RIP. 81 is a good age, lost the wife recently, Up Monaghan.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,500 ✭✭✭✭DEFTLEFTHAND


    aziz wrote: »
    A story I heard years ago that I would love it to be true is that when big Tom got one of his first gigs in New York.
    Tom and his band,the Mainliners were booked to play a huge gig in somewhere like the radio city music hall.
    "Mainlining" is a term for shooting up heroin so the place was jammed with people expecting to see a grateful dead type band,apparently there was a riot when a bunch of guys wearing pale blue suits walked out on stage and started singing "four roads to glenamaddy"
    I'd say it's an urban myth as I've heard multiple different versions of this.

    The versions I hear usually involve an outdoor concert and members of the Hells Angels.


    Gentle Mother is the opener . Poor old Big Tom and co end up having to flee for their lives.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 16,500 ✭✭✭✭DEFTLEFTHAND


    RIP. 81 is a good age, lost the wife recently, Up Monaghan.
    I would have thought he was even older tbh.

    Didn't he get his start in the 1950s


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I dont get why they call him "Big" Tom. He was only 5'8.











    Oh..


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,996 ✭✭✭✭Spanish Eyes


    Four Roads to Glenamaddy was a song my lovely and late younger sister used to sing every time she visited us. That's because the OH is from up country and she loved slagging him.

    Great memories. I got so many messages today too about her slagging. But hey that song is just something people will sing and never forget.

    May they all rest in peace.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,935 ✭✭✭randy hickey


    Big Tom's voice provided the backing track to a big chunk of my childhood, with my father leaning on one of those huge old record player-cum-radio monstrosities, listening intently, almost studiously, to the lyrics and singing along with Big Tom every weekend.
    My father was a fan, and knew Tom, but being of that generation, would never have felt comfortable telling him how highly he regarded him.

    Well, they're both gone now, and I want to pay tribute to Tom McBride on my father's behalf.

    Tom, you were bigger than the music that brought joy to thousands of people down the decades.
    You were a man of dignity, honour and respect, both in public and in private.
    You had a heart the size of Muckno.
    A true gentle giant.
    A true gentleman.
    A true Blayney man.

    Ni bheidh do leithéid ann arís.

    R.I.P. Big Tom McBride


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,243 ✭✭✭discobeaker


    My ex used to live next door to his house. I remember her saying that every couple of months the cops would call to all the houses in the area to see if they noticed any unusual activity in the area. Turns out that people kept robbing Big Tom's gates. They had a big BT in gold on them.

    He also did alot for the old folks home in castleblayney. My grandad was there for afew years and Tom was always in to say hello to everyone.

    He was a sound lad according to all I know who met him.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,925 ✭✭✭aidan24326


    Needless to say his music wouldn't be to the taste of most people on here, myself included, but fair play to him all the same. Made a career out of music at a time when your options were basically farmer/carpenter/unemployed, and by all accounts he was a decent guy. Can't say RIP as that ridiculous phrase needs to die like the deaths it references, there is no other way to be dead other than 'at peace'. i.e dead.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,526 ✭✭✭dublinman1990


    Greybottle wrote: »
    I alos liked his cameo as Tucker McElroy lead singer of The Good 'Ole Boys and driver of the Winnebago in The Blues Brothers.


    :confused:

    Charles Napier.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,314 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    Not a fan of the guy but he was sound. I used to do summer holidays with the wheelchair association. There was a special needs guy who was on the holiday every year for a week who was a massive fan. Every year Big Tom would call around to the holiday to visit him.It made the guys year.


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