Owl Records : Sonny Knowles

Biography

Sonny Knowles

All Time Classics CD - 1996

How many "stars" from today's instant pop n' flop music industry will have fans in the year 2050? How many will have the staying power and lasting appeal of the master musicians and entertainers of yesteryear? How many will chart with a top 20 single forty years into their careers?

Almost 50 years on since he first tread the boards with the Johnny Butler Dance Band, veteran singer and musician Sonny Knowles can still pull a crowd. If time has taxed a toll on his fan base, they have more than recompensed him by loyalty. They proved that by making his Christmastime is here again a gold disc and a top 20 chart hit in 1994.

Sonny's career began in the mid 1950's when he learned to blow clarinet and sax in the Dublin School of Music. Bill Haley's "Rock around the Clock" explosion opened doors for Sonny in the extraordinary Irish showband era that followed. First coming to public attention with the Earl Gill Showband, and subsequently as lead singer with the Pacific Showband, Sonny Knowles soon became a household name around Ireland. With 8 successful albums on the Pye record label and regular primetime radio play, the velvet tones of his soft mellow voice set him up to survive the inevitable 1980's decline of the showband era. That he blossomed and prospered through this period must surely be attributed more than anything to his affable manner and personal appeal. Affectionately known as "the window cleaner" because of his trade-mark hand moving stage mannerism, Sonny is also known as "mister nice guy" of the Irish music industry.

His solo career brought him many concert and television appearances throughout Europe. He performed with internationally renowned orchestras in Berlin and Dresden in Germany and also in Czechoslovakia and Norway. In 1973, he performed at the Split International Song Festival in Yugoslavia. He made several US tours with the Paddy Noonan Show and he also performed at the Moon and Supper Club in Perth, Australia.

Sonny at the Split International Song Festival in Yugoslavia in 1973

In Ireland where he is a household name, he presented the TV show, "Cabaret" for 3 successive years. He has been a regular guest performer on almost every the light entertainment TV shows for nigh on 20 years with very frequent appearances on the Late Late Show, Live at 3, Looking Good and Open House. His litany of cabaret appearances is endless and is ongoing right into the new millennium. He was a regular summer season guest artist at Butlin's Holiday Camp in Mosney for many years. While he has eased up on his workrate in recent years, he is still a hardy annual regular with the Cork City Jazz Band during the annual Cork Jazz Festival. This gig is particularly dear to him as it takes him back to his roots on tenor and alto sax.

At the twilight of an illustrious career, the honours are still flowing. It was indeed fitting that Sonny received the last "Hall of Fame" award of the old millennium at the National Entertainment Awards presentation in 1999. Other recipients that year were Gay Byrne, The Corrs and B*Witched. Ten years earlier in 1989, Sonny received the "Man of the Year" award from the Dublin Society of New York.

Receiving his "Hall of Fame" award in 1999