CPI Archive 2009: In a special extended interview, Andrew Hamilton, chat Johnny Fean about the rise, fall and eventual reformation of Horslips.
Johnny Fean was the first kid in Ireland to hear The Supremes. The year was 1961 - Kennedy was in the White House, a fledgling RTÉ was getting ready for its maiden broadcast and, in the small townland of Rineanna, something special was brewing. Factories were being built; factories which needed workers and workers who needed homes, shops and family. The Clare goldrush had begun. The Feans were one of dozens or maybe hundreds of families who made their way to Shannon in 1961. They came in search of a new life and found exactly that. Foreign investment meant foreign children and, for a teenaged Johnny Fean, this meant a vast melting pot of music. “My dad was a great jazz fan and he had a lot of recordings - a lot of 78’s and old recordings. Because he worked in the airport, he used to get a lot of records from the pilots coming in from America so I had access to a lot of great stuff. I was the first-born in the family and the very early days would have been me listening to the likes of Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole as a baby,” says Johnny.
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