The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican are a British comedy folk and parody band from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Formed in 2006, they claim to be the hardest working comedy band in the UK, having played over 1400 shows throughout the UK. They are best known on the UK's festival scene, having played at major festivals including Glastonbury Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Beautiful Days, Bearded Theory, Rebellion Festival, Wychwood Festival, Kate Rusby's Underneath The Stars Festival, Towersey Festival, Wickham Festival, Shrewsbury Folk Festival and to an audience of 20,000 at Fairport's Cropredy Convention in August 2018, for their 900th show and again in 2022. Playing mainly acoustic folk instruments, they take popular songs and replace the lyrics with their own comedy reworkings, often on themes completely unrelated to the original song. They have built a prolific back catalogue, independently releasing fifteen physical studio albums (containing over 150 song parodies in total), and over fifty live albums, some of which are exclusive to their extensive digital Bandcamp discography. Presenting themselves as the long-lost children of Irish entertainer Val Doonican, and claiming to be "on a mission to keep their late, great spiritual father's legacy alive", the various members of the band have adopted the singer's surname for their shows, and wear brightly coloured hand-knitted tank-tops in tribute to Doonican's traditional knitwear.
History
The band started out as an acoustic harmony duo consisting of Scott Doonican (vocals, acoustic guitar/banjo/mandolin/kazoo) and Danny Doonican (vocals, acoustic guitar), mainly covering quirky song choices by such disparate acts as Sparks, Queen, Judas Priest and Vera Lynn on folk instruments with Everly Brothers-styled harmonies.
The band's name and subsequent image was the idea of Scott's partner and long-standing co-lyricist Amanda White, inspired after they both saw a poster in Mojo's Records on Merchant's Arch in Temple Bar for the San Diego band The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, whilst on a weekend break to Dublin. Over several drinks in Sinnotts Bar on King Street South, they took Scott's original suggestion that they should take the tough sounding 'The Bastard Sons of' and add someone who ironically wasn't seen as a macho character. They continued to list different crooners or musicians renowned for covering other people's music in an attempt to find something ironically humorous. The shortlist included Bert Weedon, Matt Monro and Perry Como, however the 'Bastard' was soon softened to 'Bar-Steward' under Amanda's suggestion that it would only result in the band getting limited bookings because of the harshness of the name. Eventually Amanda suggested and then settled on Val Doonican and the band's uniform of knitted tank tops was born, a deliberate tribute to the Irish singer's loud jumpers as worn on his British TV show from the 1960s to the early 1990s.
They played their first show at Thawleys Pub in Wombwell, Barnsley on Saturday 17 June 2006. The pub is now a local convenience store. After their debut show, which was originally intended to be a one-off appearance, they decided to continue, and soon expanded to a three piece with the addition of Alan Doonican #1 on piano accordion, later self-releasing two albums of folky cover versions of classic rock songs (For Those About To Rock, Gently) and 1980s Number Ones (Back To The Day Job) on their independent Moon-On-A-Stick Records label, on which they continue to release albums to this day.
The song Tarnlife was later added to Cpl Kipper's Barnsley Trades Club Turn, their first full album as a comedy band, released in 2010. Its cover artwork mirrored that of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles, with 56 Barnsley celebrities gracing its front cover. The album was also notable for featuring the first of the band's several collaborations with guitarist Graham Oliver, founding member of heavy metal band Saxon.
Shortly after its release, Danny Doonican left the band, leaving Scott to complete the recording of 2011's The Dark Side Of The Tarn largely on his own.
Danny Doonican was succeeded by Andy Doonican in 2011, and the Mk.II line-up of Scott, Alan #1 and Andy recorded three further albums of parody songs between 2012 and 2014 ('EY UP! LET'S GO!, Sat'day Neet Fever and Talk Of The Tarn). In May 2014, the addition of Björn Doonicansson expanded the band to a quartet, and the departure of Alan Doonican #1 signalled the introduction of Alan Doonican #2 in October 2014 and the start of the band's Mk.III line-up. Over the next three years, the band recorded The Tarn Machine (2015), T'South 0 – Tarn 4 (2016), and 'Ave It : Bold As Brass (2017). Andy Doonican retired from the band in 2016.
In early 2018, the band re-recorded a collection of 21 of their most-loved songs for their eleventh studio album, a ten-year retrospective of their comedy years, The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican/2008–2018. The album was independently crowdfunded and released on CD, double disc coloured vinyl and limited edition cassette.
In December 2018, the band released two charity Christmas singles via iTunes. The first single was their final annual collaboration with Maartin Allcock, who had died four months before, only weeks after performing with the band at Fairport's Cropredy Convention. The track, a prog-rock/traditional folk crossover rendition of Greg Lake's I Believe In Father Christmas, entered the iTunes chart, peaking at Number 33, and gaining a Number 80 position on the UK Official Charts for both downloads and sales on 21 December 2018. The second single, The Gasman Cometh, entered the iTunes chart reaching Number 55, and the iTunes comedy chart at Number 2. In the same week The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican/2008–2018 reached Number 2 in the iTunes comedy chart. On 26 January 2019, spurred on by BBC Radio 6 ignoring an unprecedented barrage of fan requests for the song How Deep Is Your Glove? on social media, during a feature on Stuart Maconie's show called 'Sunday Glove Songs', the band defiantly released the track as a charity single for Prostate Cancer UK, and it entered the UK iTunes Comedy chart at Number 1.
Their twelfth studio album, entitled Place Of Spades was crowdfunded in early 2019. The Place Of Spades album was released and launched on Sunday 30 June 2019 at Glastonbury Festival when the band played the Avalon Stage. A Glastonbury live album, Avalon Calling was recorded during the show, and was given a limited edition CD release, which, on its announcement, sold out overnight, before being made available via digital download, a second press with different packaging and later a double pink vinyl release.
The band hosted their own music and comedy festival at The Old School House Venue in Barnsley in October 2019. Doonifest sold out over a year in advance, with a line-up including Graham Oliver from Saxon, Hobo Jones & The Junkyard Dogs, The Sweetchunks Band and many other comedy and musical acts from the UK's festival circuit. It was the venue's fastest sell-out, with all tickets going within 56 seconds, before a single act was announced. The festival also saw, original founding member, Danny Doonican, returning for one final show, as the original duo of Scott and Danny opened the festival with a set composed of early Doonicans cover versions and songs from the band's first album.
On 25 October 2019, the band played their 1000th show at the Palace Theatre in Redditch. The show was a sell-out and was filmed and recorded for a DVD and CD live album.
In January 2020, the band's twelfth studio album, Place Of Spades was the winner of a 'Jezzie Award' from Radio Bicester's 'Tarka Blowpig Music Show' after coming in at Number 1 and receiving the accolade of 'Studio Album of the Year - 2019', in a chart that featured The Who, Stormzy, Bruce Springsteen and Willie Nelson. Later in the same month, it was announced that the band would be supporting Levellers for their 2020 tour dates at Sheffield Leadmill, Holmfirth Picturedrome, Lancaster Town Hall and Nottingham Rock City. These shows were postponed until 2021 and 2022 due to a global pandemic of Coronavirus.
The 2020-2021 Global Coronavirus Pandemic caused the band to have to postpone their post-March 2020 tour dates, and as a result, Scott Doonican and his partner Amanda White, performed a series of weekly online shows, streamed on YouTube, under the title Scott Doonican's BIG NEET IN. The shows featured Scott performing live from home in his music room, interspersed with some previously recorded video footage of the full band, new music videos and collaborations between Scott and special guests, including Kathryn Roberts, Eliza Carthy, both Jeremy Cunningham and Simon Friend from the Levellers, 3 Daft Monkeys and Frank Turner amongst many others. The show also featured lots of regular puppet characters voiced and performed by Amanda. The show has continued beyond the pandemic with more sporadic episodes after 2021's Episode 66 'finale' which actually marked the band's return to live performances.
During the pandemic lockdowns, Scott and Amanda converted their garage into a pub, which was named The Pint & Puppet after their Saturday night exploits. A regular extension to their 2-3 hour livestream shows, would be an 'After-Show Party' in The Pint & Puppet, where Scott would play some covers of other artists, which would be broadcast via Facebook Live.
The fourth episode of Scott Doonican's BIG NEET IN on 18 April 2020 raised over £3000 for a local appeal to help to pay for material to make scrubs for Barnsley's NHS workers, due to the government's shortage of Personal Protective Equipment. After Amanda's mother died in Barnsley Hospital in November, after contracting the virus whilst in the hospital, the show that followed on 7 November 2020 (Show 33) raised over £2000 for the hospital ward she had been in at the time.
Although the band were announced to be playing at Bearded Theory, Fairport's Cropredy Convention, Beautiful Days Festival, Camper Calling, Underneath The Stars Festival, Wickham Festival, Costa Del Folk, Watchet Festival and several others in 2020, due to the pandemic, the festivals were postponed to 2021 or 2022 or cancelled.
Also during the coronavirus pandemic, Scott Doonican co-ordinated, produced, recorded and released a 10th Anniversary version of their Cpl. Kipper's Barnsley Trades Club Turn album, in October 2020. The album, re-recorded by Scott Doonican with additional contributions from Björn Doonicansson and Alan Doonican, and released in October 2020, also featured a host of special guests including Eliza Carthy, Dave Burland, Kate Rusby, Mike Harding, Graham Oliver, Hugh Whitaker, Kathryn Roberts, Ian McMillan, Barnsley blues-folk troubadour, Richard Kitson, and founder member Danny Doonican amongst others. The new version of the 'Barnsley Concept Album' was accompanied by a 120 page book written by Scott Doonican, entitled The Essential Listener's Guide To Cpl. Kipper's Barnsley Trades Club Turn, which contained the lyrics to the songs, and told the stories behind them and of the album's recording process.
Also during the lockdowns, Scott Doonican made a guest appearance on a version of Fairport Convention's Meet On The Ledge, featuring the members of Fairport Convention, Clannad, Turin Brakes, Ralph McTell, Martyn Joseph and many more. The song was released as a charity single to raise money for people in the music industry affected by the pandemic.
In late November 2021, the whole band commenced their first tour in two years due to the pandemic. The tour, which featured theatre-show dates in Salford, Ulpha, Banbury, Canterbury, Knutsford, Preston, York, Matlock Bath and Barnsley, also included three dates supporting the Levellers at Sheffield Leadmill, Morecambe Winter Gardens and Nottingham Rock City.