George Furey spoke to David Hennessy to look back on 50+ years of The Fureys and about why it’s time to say goodbye.
On the road since 1974 and playing before that in duos and other bands, The Fureys are bowing out after a long and storied career after this current run of dates.
They play their final ever dates in the UK in March, April and May.
When they play Vicar Street on 23 May, that will be the last the world will ever see of the band known for hits like When You Were Sweet Sixteen and The Green Fields of France.
George Furey took time to chat to The Irish World as the band are touring Ireland and preparing to say goodbye.
How does it feel to be on your final ever tour?
“It’s great.
“As a band, as the Fureys, we’re going to call it quits but I’ll still be playing a few gigs here and there on my own and so will Eddie.
“We’ll keep ourselves going, you can’t just give up and hang up all the stuff.
“You have to be involved in the music.
“And then of course we’ll have our younger generation of the Fureys as well.
“They’re there behind us so they know if they want it, it’s there for them.”
Is it hard to believe that it is 50+ years that you have been on the road?
“It is.
“For me it went like a flash because we were so busy all the time entertaining people and traveling to different countries.
“It just goes by so fast.
“But we loved every minute of it.”
Was it a hard decision to decide to call it a day?
“Yeah because we know nothing else really.
“We’re doing it all our lives.
“When we were young kids, we used to go into Dublin busking and we used to do an awful lot of busking on trains during the football matches and when we got to the stadium, we would start busking the crowd, and we’ve done that since we were kids so we we’re very used to it.”
You’ve played great stages like Carnegie Hall in New York, what leaps out as a highlight of your long career?
“Oh God, there’s a few of them.
“We played for Pope John Paul when he came over to Drogheda many years ago, that was a great highlight.
“But it was great and to be asked to do something like that and many concerts that we did for important people as well over the years, it was great to do them as well.
“You have to give something back and you do that when you’re playing music.
“The people everywhere around the world put us where we are so when someone asked us can we do something, as they did over the years, we’ve always given something back.
“That’s part of our bringing up as kids.”
You say you started early, was it always music that spoke to you?
“Yeah, and it was all kinds of music.
“We grew up in the Beatles era.
“I think I was only 11 years old and all my mates from school, we had a band.
“I think we were the youngest band at the time that played their own instruments and sang.
“And when you see them now, the ones that are still alive, you say, ‘Did we really do that?’
“It was great.
“We came on a TV show here, it was an Irish TV show and they had different kids on every week and they picked our little band at the time to play on it.
“I always remember the good times, they keep everybody going.
“Those kind of things come back.”
Speaking of highlights you were on Top of the Pops a number of times, weren’t you?
“Yeah, we were. A good few times.
“But I remember when we were in Milwaukee.
“We were doing a tour of America many years ago and I remember we stopped off in Milwaukee to do our concert.
“We were sitting in the hotel having breakfast one morning and we got a phone call and we thought it was a joke, and then it was, ‘I heard you refused to be on Top of the Pops’.
“That was the phone call that came in and one of the brothers said, ‘Who’s on the phone?’
“He said, ‘It’s some eejit’.
“But it happened to be Gay Byrne.
“He said, ‘Let me be the first one to congratulate you, you’re going to be on Top of the Pops’.
“We didn’t realise.
“We had fun getting back to do that as well.
“Milwaukee, I always remember we had to cancel the rest of the tour which was about four or five concerts and go fly back to England.
“When we got there to Top of the Pops, we couldn’t go on because there was a strike on at the BBC so we were after flying back all the way from America and we didn’t do Top of the Pops until the following weekend then until the strike was over, but it was great to be on there.
“It was great publicity for us and it got us into the big concert halls as well with different songs.
“We never stood still, we always had songs to do and albums to do over the years and we’ve always loved making albums and every album that we made, we put it down as a story like emigration albums that we’ve done.
“We did that because Ireland at the time there was an awful lot of people emigrating away from home.
“There was no work in Ireland at the time and of course we had to go away working and most of the bands that we know used to do the same and they followed the people that emigrated and they would play for them wherever they would be out in Australia and places like that and the UK of course, and that’s what we done.
“It was a hard life in those days especially for the families that had all these kids that had to go away.”
You mentioned the strike at Top of the Pops, was that the time you ended up having a session with Kool & The Gang and Midge Ure and others?
“That’s the one, yeah.
“I think the song was called Get Down on It so we did a folk version in the dressing room, and Midge Ure was there.
“It was great to meet all them as well.
“I remember there was a girl (Clare Grogan) and she brought a song out and it was called Happy Birthday.
“She says, ‘Can I have an autograph?’
“And I said, ‘Yeah, of course you can’.
“’It’s for my mother’, she said.
“I really felt old,” George laughs.
“All these things that we’ve done over the years.
“We played for prime ministers in Australia and different people over the years.
“And film stars.
“One time we were playing the Wexford Inn.
“We played the Wexford Inn for many years.
“One night we were sitting there and we brought our mother.
“And Richard Harris, the actor, walked in and planted himself right beside my mammy.
“She looked at him and then looked again and then he put his arms out and gave her a hug.
“Of course the gig was going great until Finbar mentioned, ‘Oh by the way we have a great friend of ours here tonight, Richard Harris’.
“That was the end of the concert for us, everybody wanted his autograph.
“We were background music after that for the whole night.
“It’s great to meet these people, even Peter O’Toole.
“We became great friends with all these people over the years but we were just friends, we weren’t starstruck.
“They were lovely people and we always kept in touch.
“Whether we were on tour or not, we would always meet up somewhere along the line.
“We had great fun over the years and we did an awful lot of touring in Australia.
“We loved playing.
“Where we’re from, playing so long, it comes from the heart.
“That’s the way I look at it, we always loved it.
“We put everything into it.
“I’d say it will be sad to see it happen but we’re always in touch and we’ll always play music.
“For our late brother Paul we always do this concert for him every year and we’ll never stop doing that one.”
Speaking of Paul these final dates are another chance to acknowledge your late brother..
“We always do that.
“We always think about our brother Paul.
“He was a great man for telling stories.
“I reckon he was the best storyteller of the whole family and you would always get the giggles laughing at him.
“He would tell some stupid jokes but it would make you laugh.
“At the end of the night, when we would walk down to the local pub and have a pint with some of people that came to see us in some of the places where we would play, he was the king of the party.
“He was great that way telling stories, very funny man.
“We really miss him on the road, even now to this day.
“He was the next brother to me.
“It was great to have him.”
It was early on in your career that you were involved in a car crash in Germany, that could have been a lot worse..
“It could have been.
“I was in that car.
“Myself and my brother Paul and Davey Arthur had a band called The Buskers at the time and I happened to be sitting in the back of the car.
“We were seeing what we made (from album sales) and I wasn’t thinking about putting the seat belt on and some fella crashed into the back of us.
“I went straight from the back seat into the front but thank God there was no damage done.
“It was my own fault.
“As I said, I should have been wearing the seat belt.
“And, of course, our other two brothers were up in Denmark and they heard that we had a very, very bad crash.
“Eddie came down. Eddie thought we were in hospital but it was only a slight thing.
“The car was wrecked.
“The guy that crashed into us was on his way to the hospital because his wife just had a new baby so his mind wasn’t on the road.
“Everything was sorted out and we just kept carrying on what we were doing.
“You get all these things but that’s the danger of being on the road all the time, you don’t know what’s going to happen.
“You just keep going and hope for the best.
“We have an old saying here when you are leaving home: ‘Are you going on tour?’
“We say, ‘Yes’.
“’Mind the trams’.
“We would always say that, mind the trams.
“We didn’t realise that Germany and all these foreign countries are full of trams.
“I remember one night we parked our van in some part of Germany and someone came to the hotel door looking for us.
“He said, ‘Hello, you own the van we can see sticking out of the snow?’
“I said, ‘Yeah’.
“’Well,’ he said. ‘You better come out quick because you have it parked on the tram line’.
“All brothers have their ups and downs but we really love being on the road.
“We have toured an awful lot over the years.
“When we go to Australia, we do nearly two months over there.
“It’s a long stint but when you’re playing, you don’t feel it, and the same again Germany and France, and then you go over and do Denmark and all them Scandinavian countries, and then over to America and Canada and we’ve done all that over the years.
“I see all the young bands now who are doing it and it’s great to see that happening.
“We were wondering would any young band take over out of all these bands but there is. We have a few of our own kids now, they’ll be taking over.
“There’s loads of Fureys.
“I always say to them that they have the same feeling as we had.
“That’s the thing that you have to have.
“There’s no point going out there and singing your head off if you don’t know what the words mean.
“You try to put your heart into it.
“You don’t just sing it onstage and get to the next song.
“It’s the feeling in it.
“If you can do that and you’ve got the feeling for the music and the singing, that’s it.
“At the end of the day it’s always a bit of luck.
“You have to have that bit of luck and once you get that, it’s great.
“The younger generations of Furey, they’re going to be taking to the stage and they’ll be the ones to have a look at.
“They’re very good at what they do so we leave our music and songs in safe hands.”
On that note what do you think of the resurgence of Irish music with bands like The Mary Wallopers and Tumbling Paddies? Would you be proud even as they have clearly taken inspiration from you?
“It’s great for the young kids.
“And, of course, there’s loads and loads and loads of bands gigging out there and at one stage it was mostly Irish country music over here and now it’s changing slowly over to the folk music which I think is great for us.
“I look at all the young bands coming up and they’re really very good bands.
“It’s great to see.
“It makes me proud to see all that lovely music that they’re playing.”
You come to the UK soon, have you always enjoyed coming over here?
“Always, it’s like our second home.
“As we say, it’s only across the pond.
“We’ve been touring over in the UK now for many years and of course we’ve got lots of friends everywhere.
“No matter where we go, they’ll always turn up.
“I can’t wait to meet some of the friends that we have over there.
“We’ve met great people over there.”
Could you have imagined when you started all those years ago just where it would take you?
“No, it’s luck as well.
“There’s always luck in music.
“I always say to young bands when I meet them, you need that small bit of luck but you also need to stay together.
“Through thick and thin and if you have a row in the band, stick together and you’ll get that lucky break.
“We got our lucky break with some of the songs written by friends of ours and we took that chance, we’ve done these lovely songs and of course they became hits.
“The one that we always love is the song Sweet 16 that we did.
“Our mother was born in Tipperary town and she would always be humming that when we were growing up in Ballyfermot.
“In one hour and a half we recorded that song and it was the biggest hit we ever had.
“It just goes to show you: You have to listen to mammy.”
Would you even rule out any further shows after this current tour, could you be tempted or is this it?
“I don’t think it’s going to happen to tell you the truth because the decision for us was to retire.
“Eddie wanted to retire and I always say I was outvoted.
“As I said before, I’ll continue on. I love doing it.
“At the end of the day, we’ll keep playing away and so will Eddie and the rest of the Furey gang.
“After we do the last gig in Vicar Street, other people have asked us, ‘Would you not do another show here, another show there?’
“No, we have to call it quits and that’s it.
“But it’s not stopping me from going out to make a new album as well.
“I always wanted to make a solo album so I’m going to do that with my young fella.”
So if it is it, you must want to really enjoy it while it lasts then?
“We’re looking forward to it.
“We’ll have some fun over there.
“As we always say, ‘We’ll see you further down the road’.”
The Fureys tour the UK and Ireland until 23 May and play the UK from March.
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