Hothouse Flowers enjoyed their solitary big hit Don’t Go thanks to their exposure in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988.
I last encountered Liam Ó Maonlaí when he appeared, playing a bodhrán, at the Transatlantic Sessions at the Royal Festival Hall a couple of years ago.
Seeing him, wild of beard and wilder of hair like a leprachaun Warren Ellis, I realised I hadn’t heard a thing from him or about him since this memorably marvellous song was released by Hothouse Flowers 35 years earlier.
A fusion of Irish folk, American soul and gospel, and rootsy rock’n’roll, it immediately struck a chord on release back in 1988. But then they rather disappeared.
I now learn that the band began as buskers on the streets of Dublin under the name The Incomparable Benzini Brothers, after Ó Maonlaí left The Congress, a punk covers band he had formed with childhood friend Kevin Shields and Colm Ó Cíosóig.
The others went on to add members and change their band name to My Bloody Valentine while Ó Maonlaí, who had once won the All-Ireland Under-18 prize for bodhrán, took to the streets of Dublin with another old schoolfriend, Fiachna O’Broainain.
Adding bassist Peter O’Toole and winning the Street Entertainers of the Year award in 1985 long before MBV learned how to assault the ears with feedback, they expanded to include saxophonist Leo Barnes, and drummer Jerry Fehily and changed their name to Hothouse Flowers.
That they landed a record deal was thanks to Bono, who spotted them on TV and signed them up to U2’s label Mother for a single, Love Don’t Work This Way. That earned them a deal with PolyGram subsidiary London Records and a debut album, People, that became the most successful debut album in Irish history and hit No.2 in the UK charts in 1988.
Hothouse Flowers had already had an Irish No.1 with their third single, Feet On The Ground, but were still unknown here until the Eurovision Song Contest that year, when a music video for the first single, Don’t Go, was played in the interval at the 1988.
The single reached No.11 here and they made a second album that included a day’s recording in New Orleans with Daniel Lanois while Bob Dylan was taking a break from his sessions in the studio.
They had a few more minor hits, including a surprisingly successful gospel-flavoured cover of Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now, and an unlikely collaboration with Def Leppard as The Acoustic Hippies From Hell, who recorded covers of The Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want and Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing in 1992.
After a third album failed to achieve much success despite a year of touring to promote it, in early 1994 Ó Maonlaí decided that the group was suffering from physical, mental and creative exhaustion and called for a year-long sabbatical.
The year-long break turned into several years as band members recouped their energy and experienced changes in their personal lives, including divorces, marriages, the birth of children and the death of Ó Maonlaí’s father; they also split from their long-time manager, and Barnes and Fehily left the group.
Ó Maonlaí, a native Irish speaker, has released a solo album entitled Rían which is a collection of tunes and songs in Irish and showcasing his dexterity with the bodhrán, such as this one – Sadbh Ni Buruinnealadh – and is politically active as a member of the Nuclear Free Future movement, and has performed at a benefit concert for Gaza.