Johnny Carroll
Johnny Carroll, The Man With the Golden Trumpet
The year 2007 marks the beginning of Johnny Carroll’s 50th year in show business. From his early beginnings in Castlerea, County Roscommon, Ireland, as a 12 year old boy, he began his musical career with the ‘Castlerea Brass Band’. That was in 1958. Johnny tells the story that “ before the brass band came to Castlerea there was little or no social scene except for one cinema. It was a rural town with virtually nothing to do. When the brass band started up everybody congregated around the room and was keen to be involved. Even though he never played himself, my late father Joe Carroll had a great interest in brass music. He encouraged me to go and used to bring me there and back.” Johnny had taken the first tentative steps of what was to be a lifetime career. In the beginning he played on a coronet handed to him by the bands leader, but that December Johnny recalls one of his fondest memories, of going into Dublin on the back of his father’s bicycle to collect the trumpet which his father had ordered for him for Christmas. They carried it home from Walton’s Music Store. In a large cardboard box. “ It was the best Christmas ever!”
The very next year as Johnny became accomplished playing with the ‘Castelerea Brass Band’, and was forever practicing, one of the leaders of the ‘Premier Aces’ a popular band from nearby Ballintubber was having his auto repaired in a garage across from the Carroll home, and happened to hear the sounds of young Johnny playing away on his trumpet and came knocking on the door to inquire as to who was playing? So impressed was he with Johnny’s talents that he urged his mother and father to allow him to join their group and travel. At first the answer was “out of the question!” But they kept prevailing upon them to allow Johnny the opportunity. And upon seeing that they were all veterans in the business and with fine reputation, at a mere thirteen years of age, Johnny became a member of the ‘Premier Aces Show Band”. Johnny stayed in school two more years before making trumpet playing his full time profession. Throughout the 60’s the show band toured all over Ireland with great success and following. But in the beginning of the 1970’s the band split up and Johnny went on to join ‘Murphy and the Swallows’ and then eventually a group named ‘The Magic Band’ which Johnny went on to lead in 1973. “We were the first band to do TV ads in Ireland and we also had our own show on Radio Eireann every Monday”. But that was also the time when show bands began to loose popularity as disco came on the scene. So “I decided to go out on my own and soon I became Johnny Carroll the Man with the Golden Trumpet”. It was the beginning of a new direction.
Johnny’s greatest idol was the English trumpet player Eddie Calvert. Calvert had a worldwide hit with his recording of ‘“Oh Mein Papa’. Johnny approached promoter Donie Cassidy with the idea of recording a solo album. It was a most unusual venture as no Irishman before had ever done a solo trumpet album. But a demo was made, and ultimately the first LP called ‘A Touch of Class’ came out in 1988. It was an unprecedented success for which Johnny received a gold album award, only to be followed by five more award winning albums, including four more gold discs. Johnny had made the climb to the top. Sadly, during the course of the success, Johnny lost his beloved wife Stella. So the years were both sweet and bitter, yet Johnny carried on, as Stella had wanted him to, and now with his four children, David, Pricilla, Michael and Zanda, his alone to raise.
Life began anew again when Johnny married a Limerick-born lady, Anne Sheehan. They made their home in Galway where they live to this day. Anne works as a banker in Galway city, and Johnny continues to play at many political and sporting functions, Croke Park on All-Ireland final days and private events, the Rose of Tralee festival the Euro Ball and concerts and tours in Spain, Portugal, Australia and the UK and the United States as well. Cleveland Ohio Disc Jockey’s Gerry Quinn and Bill Randle were instrumental in getting Johnny’s music first played in the US. Both DJ’s promoted and played his albums. Johnny began touring the US with concerts and festivals in Cleveland, New York, Chicago, and as far away as Galveston, Texas where he performed to an adoring audience at the Grand 1894 Grand Opera House, where on the very same stage, John Phillip Sousa once performed. For that occasion, Johnny’s visit and photograph graced the front page of the Galveston Daily News. And as promised he hopes to return.
In the years since, Cleveland has lost their favorite music man, Bill Randle. And his shoes are hard to fill. But Johnny has dedicated his newest CD, ‘Be My Life’s Companion’, to his memory. The sounds of Johnny’s Golden Trumpet can be heard now throughout the world, and hopefully somewhere very near and dear to you!
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