Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Val Doonican (born Michael Valentine Doonican, 3 February 1927, Waterford, Ireland) is an Irish singer. From 1965 to 1986 he was a regular fixture on the BBC Television's schedule with The Val Doonican Show, which featured his own singing performances and a variety of guest artists. A notably relaxed crooner, Doonican had 5 successive Top 10 albums in the UK Albums Chart in the swinging sixties.
Early life
Doonican was the youngest of 8 children born to Agnes (née Kavanagh) and John Doonican. His father died in 1941 when Val was a teenager, so he had to leave De La Salle College, Waterford, to get factory jobs fabricating steel and making orange boxes.
Singing career
He was from a musical family and started performing in his hometown and in a summer season at Courtown Harbour. He was then featured on Irish radio and appeared in Waterford's first-ever television broadcast. Then he played the drums in a band on a tour through Ireland. In 1951 he moved to England to join The Four Ramblers, who toured and performed on BBC Radio shows broadcast from factories.
He eventually went solo and had a radio show as well as performing concerts and cabaret. In 1963 he was booked to appear on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. As a result of this performance, Bill Cotton, then Assistant Head of Light Entertainment, offered him his own show on BBC television, lasting for over 20 years. It featured his relaxed crooner style performance sitting in a rocking chair, as well as a number of comic Irish songs, notably "Paddy McGinty's Goat", "Delaney's Donkey", and "O'Rafferty's Motor Car", on which he accompanied himself on acoustic guitar. He often wore cardigans and jumpers, which became his trademark along with the rocking chairs from which he often performed, and he was sometimes compared to American singer Perry Como, though he has claimed his main influence was Bing Crosby. As it was a variety show, it gave a number of other performers early exposure, such as Dave Allen. On 31 December 1976, Doonican performed his hit song "What Would I Be" on BBC One's A Jubilee Of Music, celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver jubilee.
The Palladium performance also kick-started his recording career. Between 1964 and 1973 Doonican was rarely out of the UK Singles Chart, his greatest successes including the singles "Walk Tall", "The Special Years", "Elusive Butterfly", "What Would I Be", (on Decca) "If The Whole World Stopped Loving" (Pye), and "Morning" (Philips); and the albums 13 Lucky Shades of Val Doonican (Decca), and Val Doonican Rocks, But Gently (Pye) which reached Number 1 in the UK Albums Chart in 1967. After a spell with Philips records in the seventies he also recorded for RCA. He also sang the theme song to the film Ring of Bright Water.
Current activities
Doonican lives in Knotty Green, Buckinghamshire, and though he still performs, he now enjoys spending lots of free time in Spain, where he has a second home and is a keen golfer. He is cited as a member of the eclectic (and fictional) "orchestra" in The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's recording, "The Intro and the Outro", credited "as himself".
