Q&A: DUKE SPECIALon honouring the life of forgotten Belfast pop star Ruby Murray
How did you become acquainted with the music of Ruby Murray?I have a writing room at the Oh Yeah building in Belfast, where there's an exhibition celebrating musicians from the North. As well as Ash, The Undertones and Van Morrison, there's also memorabilia related to the career of Ruby Murray. In 1955, she had five different songs in the UK top 20 simultaneously, a record only equalled later by Michael Jackson. I was fascinated that someone from Belfast could have enjoyed such enormous success, yet still be so obscure to most people my age.
The period of her greatest success was very brief.Yes, she was a huge star at 21. But her career faltered almost as soon as it began. She was one of the earliest to make her name on television, but she was an old-fashioned crooner in the style of Doris Day, Alma Coogan or Vera Lynn. Her biggest year, 1955, happened also to be the year of Elvis Presley, James Dean and Marlon Brando. The era of rock and roll, the era of the teenager had begun.
Did she continue to perform after the hits dried up?She did, but she met with diminishing returns. It wasn't just styles that changed, so did the venues. The concert venues where the rock bands played were drawing the crowds now and people were drifting away from things like summer seasons at Blackpool pier. Her last chart hit was in 1959. But she continued to play right up until her health failed, due in part to alcoholism. She died in 1996.
Having been out of favour with critics and fans for half a century now, what convinced you that her music was worth going back to? Iwas asked by a television company if I'd be interested in presenting a documentary about her music. So I went and listened to the records. A lot of the tunes turned out to be quite familiar to me. My parents would have been teenagers in the 1950s, so they would have sung some of them around the house. Her music might sound naive or old fashioned today, but her delivery was just incredible. She was an honest, vulnerable girl-next-door who just embodied those songs. Even if people don't fall in love with every single thing she did, she still deserves to be remembered.
Who else participated in the documentary? Ruby's ex-husband Bernie Burgess is one of the people who maintains her website and does the most to protect her legacy. We also spoke to her son and daughter, and some long-time fans. Phil Coulter, for example, is best known for other things now, but back in the 1950s, he was a staff writer on Denmark Street in London – which was kind of the British answer to Tin Pan Alley – you know knocking out half a dozen new songs every week for artists like Ruby.
Two concerts are also planned for the National Concert Hall and the Cork Opera House. Yes, for the first half of the show I'll be interpreting some of Ruby's best-known songs – I'll Come When You Call, Happy Days and Lonely Nights – with guest performances by Mary Coughlan and Mary Kate Geraghty from Fight Like Apes. I don't want it to be pure nostalgia though. We won't be performing a pastiche of the originals. While being respectful of the original arrangements, I hope to bring them somewhere else. Hopefully, it'll provide a lot of people with an interesting introduction to her music.
This isn't your first time collaborating with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. You obviously enjoy it. I think I've performed eight different shows with various orchestras in the last few years and I always jump at the chance to do it. Having 50 odd people behind you, it's the best backing band in the world.
Are you tempted to go mad with power and force the orchestra to wear fire helmets, as Brian Wilson famously once did?No, but you're giving me ideas now.
Ruby and the Duke airs on RTÉ One on January 18th. Ruby and the Duke: The Concert, with Mary Kate Geraghty and Mary Coughlan, will take place at the National Concert Hall, February 2nd, and at the Cork Opera House, February 6th
