Jimmy MacCarthy

James MacCarthy (born 1953) is an Irish singer-songwriter.

In the late 1970s, MacCarthy was already an established musician on the Cork rock circuit and was working with musicians with some impressive feats to their names.

Southpaw was MacCarthy's first band of note, which he formed with ex-Horslips guitarist Declan Sinnott, who had also played with Homegrown and Sunwheel, a former member of Chuck Berry’s backing band Johnny Campbell, Dave Whyte and Teddie Moynihan, a musician well-versed in both guitar and keyboard in the band Southpaw.

MacCarthy himself was the band's acoustic guitar player and, together with Sinnott, wrote much of the band's own material.

While in Southpaw, MacCarthy secured gigs at venues such as Cork’s Connolly Hall, supporting John Martyn, the Manhattan Bar in Galway, the Festival Dome, the UCC Downtown Kampus, the Blue Shark in Kinsale, The Meeting Place on Dorset Street and some prestigious Dublin residencies.

In their brief twelve months together Southpaw managed to develop somewhat of a cult following.

While it was reported Southpaw had recorded some demos, they never released a record of their own.

They supposedly planned to release an album but it never even got to the test pressing stage.

Never forgetting the experience, MacCarthy spoke years later about how, as a band, Southpaw were into the magic of making music, and played every gig as if it would be their last.

Declan Sinnott also considered Southpaw’s work as being better music than his more well-known band Horslips.

Incidentally, working with Declan Sinnott, specifically opened MacCarthy up to a new world of production and arranging that was partly traditional, and also simple and cost-effective.

According to MacCarthy, the most exciting moments in Southpaw were not doing the gigs or making recordings, as one would expect, but when Declan Sinnott strapped on the Telecaster to work on a new arrangement with him, which he compared to catching a glimpse of a rare and majestic creature who induced awe in everyone it encountered.

Of course, Sinnott would not be the only connection MacCarthy would make through being a member of Southpaw.

Notable fans of Southpaw included other rising talents including Donal Lunny, Christy Moore, and Andy Irvine, all of whom would be of significance to MacCarthy’s career later on.

Not only did Christy Moore go on to record many of MacCarthy’s songs, not least of which was ‘Ride On’, but he also came to Southpaw’s gigs and booked them to play some shows he was organizing.

In the early 1980s, MacCarthy secured a number of support slots for other artists, most notably Chris De Burgh and Maura O'Connell and, while his debut single 'Miles of Eyes' wasn't a chart success, it received near incessant airplay on Irish radio for five weeks.

In his career, MacCarthy has had the fortune of being able to tour with De Dannan and producers such as Donal Lunny.

Following Southpaw, MacCarthy became a solo performer and, through a deal with Mulligan Records, released two singles of his own in 1981, titled 'Miles of Eyes' and 'Like in the Movies'.

While 'Miles of Eyes' would become a turntable hit, it was MacCarthy's experience as a songwriter that stood to him on numerous occasions.

On reflection, MacCarthy stated that being a songwriter was what earned him his place in Southpaw.

Moreover, when Moving Hearts debuted MacCarthy's songs ‘Burning Star’ and ‘Strain of the Dance’ at the Rossnaree Hotel, Drogheda in late 1982 and released the latter on their 1983 album ‘Live Hearts’, it was only the following year that MacCarthy was booked to play a residency in the Cork Metropole, the Anchor Bar, Dunmore East, and Dublin’s National Stadium.

Initially, ‘Strain of the Dance’ was to be MacCarthy’s first single, but, due to its disturbing imagery and in respect to the victims of the Stardust tragedy and their families, he and Seamus O’Neill of Mulligan Records mutually settled on ‘Miles of Eyes’ instead.

However, Moving Hearts' success with 'Strain of the Dance' gave MacCarthy the confidence to think of himself as a songwriter.

From the 1990s until the 2010s, MacCarthy had begun to release full albums, and his solo career was well underway.

MacCarthy was born in Macroom, County Cork, Ireland, to Ted MacCarthy (died 1998) and Betty MacCarthy (died 2009).

He has 11 siblings.

The family had a business distributing newspapers and magazines all over Munster.

However the family soon lost their business from a combination of bad health and bad luck.

Despite this, Ted and Betty made sure that things would still be good for their children.

MacCarthy was unhappy at school and left at 15 without an Inter Cert and became a stable boy at Vincent O'Brien's place in Ballydoyle.

After five years between Tipperary and Newmarket, Jimmy returned home to help his father, whose bad heart had led to the end of the business.

He then made a living out of singing at pubs, and was later busking in the streets of London and doing occasional concerts, opening for other singers' gigs in Ireland.

MacCarthy became a musician from an early age, receiving his first guitar at the age of 7.

At 12, he formed a garage band with his brother Dan by 12 with whom he played in a Legion of Mary gathering and at a glorified hamburger joint called the Shambles.

MacCarthy often recalled that, in his early teen years, he got an under-15 train ticket from Cork to Dublin for £5 to play gigs to earn £5.

Fortunately, he would say, the rest was left at the mercy of the good-natured who rarely let him down.

When MacCarthy turned 19, he was performing in his native Cork in bars and folk clubs, including the Pirates Den, Crosshaven, where he would earn £5 a night, plus all the drink he could manage.

Prior to forming his first band, Southpaw with Declan Sinnott, MacCarthy and a friend from his formative years, Owen Hunter O’Brien, formed an act called Huntermac who were booked as the support act for Planxty at the Savoy in Limerick and in Cork, playing a combination of covers and some original songs.

By the age of 25, MacCarthy had a whole set of original compositions to his name, although, describing himself as “unemployable” at the time, no-one wanted to hear them, at least as a solo performer.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t long after MacCarthy and Sinnott formed Southpaw that things would change for the better.