Ed Power: Dickie Rock was Ireland’s Elvis — a homegrown rock icon

Nobody was more surprised by the magic Rock worked in front of an audience than the singer himself. A shy working-class kid from Cabra, he was, to the end of his days, mystified by the effect he had on a crowd. It was almost as if he transformed into another person.

“I metamorphose. I give off a different vibe, if you know what I mean,” he once said. 

“I wasn’t born six foot one and fantastic looking, like Elvis. Still, neither was Sinatra or Tony Bennett. But something happens, you give off something, whatever it is.” 

He had always fancied himself an old-fashioned entertainer — a crooner in the Sinatra or Tony Bennett tradition. Yet during his days fronting the Miami Showband and later as a solo artist, his fans saw someone else. To them, he was a bad boy with a lock-up-your-daughters energy. 

“He wanted to be Tony Bennett — he was actually Eddie Cochran,” according to Ronan Collins, a drummer in Rock’s band in the 1970s.

In his later years, he became a sort of musical living fossil — a legend who, much like his contemporary Joe Dolan, survived the decline of the showbands and continued to go down a storm on the nostalgia circuit.

Never one to go quietly into the twilight, in 2020, he became involved in an unlikely, if short-lived, feud with fellow Eurovision singer (and showband survivor) Johnny Logan, during which he threatened to give Logan a “f***ing box.” Yet grudge-bearing wasn’t in his nature. Within a few days, he and Logan had made up.

Rock was born in 1936 and grew up in Cabra, then a hard-knock suburb on Dublin’s northside. “We were working class,” he recalled in 2016. "I remember before central heating was a fixture in most Irish houses, my da used to go upstairs and lie on each of his five kids’ beds for 10 minutes a piece, so they would be nice and warm for us when we went to bed.” 

His talent as a singer was obvious from a young age. 

“Growing up, I did dream about being a singer, but I thought a young lad from Cabra would never get the break. In school I was average. I liked going to Mass because I could sing and I joined the choir,” he once told the Irish Examiner.

By the time I was eight I was known in Cabra as ‘Richard Rock, boy soprano’. There was an element of prestige attached to it. 

When I was 13 I joined a group called the Casino Player who used to go around hospitals and nursing homes to perform for the sick and elderly.” 

His childhood was marked by tragedy, with the death of his younger brother, Joseph. “He got a bang of a car, while he was just sitting on his bike, he died,” Rock would recall (there was further heartache when foster brother Vincent died of a heroin overdose in 2002).

Rock never dreamed he could make a living from music. After leaving school, he worked as an apprentice welder. He would sing on the job, and one day, a fellow worker approached him and asked if he wanted to join his band.

In 1963, he was unveiled as frontman of the Miami Showband — soon the biggest draw on Ireland’s fast-expanding live music circuit. They were also a fixture in the singles charts, starting in 1963 with a cover of Elvis’s There’s Always Me.

The showbands helped drag Ireland into the modern age. Though later derided as a twee embarrassment, to the generation raised on stars such as Rock, Joe Dolan, and Brendan Bowyer, they represented a chink of light in a country dominated by the Church. In dark times, they were a ray of hope.

“One of Bob Geldof’s criticisms was it was a bunch of guys in shiny suits playing covers. That goes back to 1959, 1960… when the showband thing started,” Ronan Collins told the Irish Examiner recently.

“He’s exactly right. That’s what it was. 

"But the funny thing was that across the water in England, there were dozens of groups wearing shiny suits.

"I’m talking about The Beatles. I’m talking about The Stones. They played rhythm and blues. They all looked the same. And then they created their own identities, as did the showbands.” 

The Miami Showband turned Rock into a homegrown megastar. It quickly dawned on him that he was the main draw — and he wondered if it was fair that he should earn the same as his bandmates. 

The audiences were, after all, turning out for him, not the sax player. He also wondered how much money was being made from his performances — and why he saw so little of it.

“I’m walking down the street and people are asking for autographs, yet I’m thinking, ‘What good is being Dickie Rock, having hit records, if you’re not having the rewards? I’m still getting the same money as the sax player. You can replace the sax player. Don’t dare say you can replace me!’” 

A solo career was the obvious next step. He tested the waters in 1966 when representing Ireland in the Eurovision with Come Back to Stay, which placed fourth. Rock officially went solo in 1972. By then, “Spit on me, Dickie!” had become the unofficial slogan of his fanbase. Just to be within gobbing distance of the charismatic entertainer was its own reward.

The showbands went into decline through the 1970s. Dick, however, never lost his love of music — or his connection with his audience. 

The venues might have grown smaller — but his performances were still larger than life. In contrast to many of his peers, it was unthinkable that he might slide into obscurity.

If anything, with the passing of the years his importance as one of Ireland’s first rock stars took on an extra significance. 

Before Roy Gallagher, Phil Lynott or Bono, there was Dickie — an outlaw, a rebel, and a showman who made 1960s Ireland feel that bit less grim and stultifying. Long after the sun had set on the showbands, his star continued to burn brightly.