Brendan O’Beirne's links to other websites.
Links to websites of people etc referred to in this piece and other relevant websites are listed below.
I have always had a love for Music and Poetry and books in general. The songs I heard on Radio in the fifties really captured my imagination. I still remember the fascination they had and still have for me. Songs like “Davy Crockett” “Que Sera Sera”. Eartha Kitt singing “Row, row, row”. Lonnie Donegan’s famous song “Putting on the agony, putting on the style”.
As the fifties matured and I approached the age of eleven I took to listening to Radio Luxembourg at night and quickly became hugely interested in everything I heard. Most of the music was American Rock and Roll, The Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.
From 1962 onwards The Showband scene really took off in Ireland and more and more English bands started to have hit records. By 1964 the new sound had well an truly arrived, led by the Beatles and The Stones. Other bands like Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Hollies, Manfred Mann, The Animals, Hermans’s Hermits along with the Van Morrison led them to Belfast, all made the Sixties truly memorable.
In 1967 The Seminal Beatles album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, marked a new departure in music and quickly became THE album for The Hippie Generation. Other hugely talented bands emerged around this time, Cream, Pink Floyd, Thin Lizzie in 1969. The Beach Boys have always been my Favourite American Group. Another major development from the late Sixites on was the emergence of the Singer Songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Van Morrison. I very nearly forgot to mention the most incredible guitarist in the History of Rock and Blues, Jimi Hendrix. I thought very highly of Crosby, Nash and Young.
Favourite Poets.
My favourite poet since I have a teenager and still today is Dylan Thomas. To me he is the ultimate Surrealist, the ultimate Lyric poets. He is the Jimi Hendrix of poetry. Other poets I love in particular are the American master, Wallace Stevens, the revolutionary Beat Poet, Allen Ginsberg and the poetic father of all poets, Walt Whitman. My favourite Irish poet was Patrick Kavanagh. My favourite English poets are William Wordsworth and W.H. Auden. My interest in the poetry of Sylvia Plath is great.Favourite Novelists.
My first great love for the novels of D.H. Lawrence which I discovered in my mid-teens. A little later a friend of my fathers gave me Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” to read. Without being fully able to understand all of it I read James Joyce’s “Ulysses” in my late teens. Other writers I loved and adored as I grew older were Gustave Flaubert and Dostoievsky, the Russian author of “The Idiot”. I greatly admired F. Scott Fitzgerald and Herman Melville, author of “Moby Dick”. I must say I got something from every author I read.Favourite Artists.
My favourite artist has always been Salvador Dali. I love surrealism more than any other movement in Art. I am fascinated by the Pre-Raphaelites. Surrealism has been the most powerful influence in my poetry. My favourite Irish artists are Jack. B. Yeats and the late Colin Middleton.Favourite Film Directors.
By far, the film director I most admire is the Swede, Ingmar Bergman. His masterpiece “VIRGIN SPRING” is my favourite film of all time. I also love all of the other films of his I have seen. Other directors I love are the Italian Federico Fellini, the Spaniard Luis Bunuel and the Indian Satyagit Ray. American Directors I find inspiring are John Huston, John Ford and in particular Steven Spielberg. Actresses who really move me are Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Faye Dunaway, Kim Basinger, Liz Taylor and Goldie Hawn. Actors include Jeremy Irons, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Paul Newman.Click on the links in blue to visit relevant websites...
Clare Three-Legged Stool Poets http://www.clarepoets.com/
The Fiftees http://www.loti.com/
Doris Day http://www.dorisday.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Que_Sera_Sera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Day
Eartha Kitt http://www.earthakitt.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eartha_Kitt
Lonnie Donegan http://www.lonniedoneganinc.com/
Radio Luxembourg http://www.pjede.de/
Everly Brothers http://www.everlybrothers.com/
Chuck Berry http://www.chuckberry.com/
Fats Domino http://www.fatsonline.nl/
Elvis http://www.elvis.com/
Jerry Lee Lewis http://www.jerryleelewis.com/
Little Richard http://www.littlerichard.com/
Irish Showbands http://www.irish-showbands.com/
The Beatles http://www.thebeatles.com/core/home/
Rolling Stones http://www.rollingstones.com
The Hollies http://www.gerrymarsden.co.uk/
Manfred Mann http://www.manfredmann.co.uk/
The Animals http://www.ericburdon.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animals
Hermans Hermits http://www.hermanshermits.com/
http://www.hermanshermits.co.uk/
Van Morrison http://www.vanmorrison.com/
The 60’s http://www.sixties.net/sixties.htm
Sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club band
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvUP0myptUA
Jack Bruce http://www.jackbruce.com/cream/
Pink Floyd http://www.pinkfloyd.com/
Taste http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_(band)
http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/tastelyrics.htm
Thin Lizzy http://www.thinlizzy.org/
http://www.jimfitzpatrick.ie/gallery/lizzy.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_Lizzy
Beach Boys http://www.beachboysfanclub.com/