The Memories

The Memories formed in 1963 in Ireland when school friends and Phibsboro church choir members Mick Swan, Daire Doyle, Colm Harpur and Jim Barry combined with guitarist Ray Crowe to perform acoustic folk music with vocal harmonies on the cabaret circuit. By 1967 they had made national TV and signed with Rex Records, with whom they recorded twelve singles and one album over the following seven year period. The second of these singles reached the Irish charts in 1968. According to the sleeve notes for their debut album, the band had their own hour-long TV spectacular in early 1972, for which they a played a well-received pop music set, prompting them to make the switch from folk. Drummer Chris Heenan was added to an electric line-up of Mick Swan (keyboards/flute/vocals), Daire Doyle (bass/vocals), Colm Harper (lead vocals/guitar), Jim Barry (lead vocals) and Ray Crowe (guitar/vocals). They avoided becoming a full showband by continuing to perform complex vocal harmonies and writing some original material, mostly by Mick Swan and Daire Doyle. Album The Time Is Now followed later in 1972 (billed simply as “Memories“) and included three band originals alongside pop and ballad covers. Notable among the former are the haunting Tuesday Morning and the heavier The House Fell Down, while the latter included soulful readings of Didn’t You Hear? and Neil Diamond’s The Time Is Now.