Are You Dancing?

Rebecca S. Miller is Professor of Music at Hampshire College, a public sector folklorist, and a traditional fiddler. She is the author of Carriacou String Band Serenade: Performing Identity in the Eastern Caribbean.

"This book is a must-read for anyone interested in processes of change and modern Ireland, and further afield in twentieth century popular music studies in a post-colonial context. The detail of the rise (and fall) of showbands, as the first home grown popular music on the island during the mid-decades of the twentieth century, paints an extraordinarily rich picture of a country and its people undergoing transformation. Foregrounding the voices and images of those musicians, moguls and managers who experienced it, the story is firmly grounded in Miller's ... incisive interpretation. Combining a wide range of critical tools including analysis of the sounds of showbands, this book comprehensively challenges and rewrites the narrative of showbands and their dancing public demonstrating their importance. And, no mean feat, it's a rollicking read to boot!"—Dr. Méabh Ní Fhuartháin, Centre for Irish Studies, University of Galway"Before Bono, before Bicep, before Sinead O'Brien . . . came the showbands. And before the world of the showbands slips forever from view, we need a comprehensive account of how this extraordinary musical phenomenon imposed itself on the national consciousness of Ireland during the second half of the twentieth century. Rebecca Miller's Are You Dancing? is that account. Both scholarly and highly readable, this book tracks the fate of the showbands from their emergence in the post-Emergency era, through the crazy days of the 1960s and 1970s, down to their social, cultural and technological obsolescence towards century's end. . . . Incorporating testimony from many of the scene's key figures, Are You Dancing? invites us to listen again to the music that soundtracked a formative period in modern Irish history."—Gerry Smyth, Professor of Irish Cultural History, Liverpool John Moores University"What a wonderful book! Are You Dancing? captures the grit, glamour, innocence and uniformity of Ireland in the showband era. Scholarly yet intimate, you can almost smell the sweat, sex and shoe polish of a showband in full swing. A treasure chest for punter or professor."—Larry Kirwan, Black 47

• Acknowledgments1. Introduction: Remembering the Showbands, Documenting Popular Music2. "The Archbishop's Quadrille": The Church, The State, Dance Bands, and Céilís, 1925 to 19553. Origins: "The Band That Does the Show"4. "Traveling Jukeboxes": Imitation, Translation, and Irishness5. "Blarney Sounds": Making and Marketing the Showband Industry6. Builders, Promoters, Managers, and Priests: Profiles of Showband Entrepreneurs7. "Aching the Notes" and Challenging the Industry: Negotiating Gender on the Showband Stage8. Hucklebucking Across the Waters: Irish Showbands in Diaspora9. The End of the Showband EraReferencesIndex