【Pls look at the top comment first】In 1978, Mama's Boys was formed by the three McManus brothers Pat, a.k.a. "The Professor", (guitars, fiddle), John (bass, vocals) and Tommy (drums). Among hard rock fans, their names are widely known, especially for 1980s dreamers. They come from County Fermanagh as one of the fewest hard rock bands of Northern Irish origin in music world. The McManus brothers started their music career at very young ages as their superb self-funded debut was released in 1980. Initially, Mama's Boys was a three-piece band, featuring John McManus on lead vocals. This simple family line-up lasted four years with classic hard rock works one after another, releasing five albums continuously from 1980 to 1985. People may be impressed by the guitarist Pat McManus, who also played fiddle (most often a violin) on stages as well as some more traditional Irish elements added into their works.
Later in their career in 1986, Mama's Boys became a four-piece band, adding new member on lead vocals. In the following years, this vocal position had experienced frequent changes with four vocalists in turn before the band finally broke up. I selected this song from "Growing Up the Hard Way (1987)", because this was their first formal release since the band entered a new era with four members, also it was their big try in style changes. In this album, the youngest brother Tommy McManus was only 20 years old, but the three brothers were already veterans with ample stage experience.
About the style changes, they added more melodic rock elements into music arrangements. Compared to their former releases in typical classic hard rock genre, "Growing Up the Hard Way" sounds more AORish, featuring Keith Murrell who was the former member from Airrace on lead vocals, with the ballad like this broken-love's theme "Running Away" and melodic hard rock tracks like the opening one "Waiting for a Miracle" & "Bed Room Eyes" as well as the pleasing pure aor gems like "In Over My Head" & "Hot Blood" with more harmonious backing vocals and some gleaming keyboards. According to Keith, such style changes from traditional hard rock to commercial melodic rock would have made America sit up and take notice of Mama's Boys. Finally they made it. Actually, all of them love melodious works like those from Journey, Foreigner, Bad Company and more. Keith was the most appropriate role that Pat McManus sought, who could undertake this album's vocals to make it spread more widely.
"Growing Up the Hard Way" is the one and the only melodic rock release of Mama's Boys. The year 1987 was the first time as well as the last time that Keith Murrell worked with the band, who later joined Cliff Richard as a backing singer and was replaced by Connor McKeon in Mama's Boys in 1989. McKeon also stayed for a very short time, who was subsequently replaced by Mike Wilson in 1990. Murrell's departure was because the band parted ways with the Jive Label.
In the following years, with their two albums respectively released in 1991 and 1992 (both of them include live versions when they were on the tour), Tommy's health was deteriorating because he suffered from leukemia since childhood. Even undertaking a bone marrow transplant, Tommy did not survive. "Relativity (1992)" became their last studio album. Tommy's death was a cruel blow and a big loss, leading to the band's breakup, so Mama's Boys finally said goodbye to stages.
When Tommy McManus (25 March 1966 – 16 November 1994) started to play with his brothers in the band, he was only 12 as a teen talent. Life is so short, but rock spirit is longlasting. On the first anniversary of Tommy's death, John composed a traditional lament on the low whistle for his brother, leading to two brother's revisiting their ethnic Irish music roots and forming a Celtic/new age group "Celtus".
About their stage years, tt is not strange to hear fiddle, low whistle, tin whistle, uilleann pipes and bodhran in their music. Don't forget three boys' Celtic origin. Interestingly, they showed less interest in traditional Irish music at very young ages except Pat, who played a role as a fiddle player, but in their last album "Relativity", Celtic elements were added into arrangements. Check out this "farewell" release like an ethnic hard rocking tour, taking us to that amazing land.
#MelodicRock #HardRock #aor #MamasBoys
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