Bandleader Anthony (Tony) Chambers, whose haunting saxophone music in the 1982 film, The Ballroom of Romance, evoked the sadness which often underlay the rural Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s, died on April 24th aged 78, in his native Newport, Co Mayo.
Although he played at venues all over Ireland during a lengthy career, he was identified especially with dance halls in the west and was active in the Tony Chambers Orchestra until he became ill last December. His three sons, Jim, Frank and Tony Og, also played with him at various times in the orchestra.
While his role in the film version of William Trevor's The Ballroom of Romance gave a fillip to Tony Chambers's career and won him fan mail from all over the world, it led to him being type cast.
In An Irishman's Diary written 10 years ago, Tony Chambers commented: "One drawback of all the publicity is that many people think we only play the type of music that was in the film, whereas we are one of the country's most versatile groups. One minute we can play Moonlight in Mayo, then turn to In the Mood and then shake things up with Rock Around the Clock. We're certainly not stuck back in the sad era of The Ballroom of Romance."
Tony Chambers was born in Newport on July 8th, 1922, to Frank, who owned the corner shop and was also a small builder and his wife Sarah (nee Walsh), from Crossmolina. He attended the local national school, where one of the nuns encouraged his musical talent and started him singing in the choir. At 16, he began playing the fiddle in a local ceili band and he subsequently taught himself to play the saxophone.
When he was 19, he formed the Twilight Serenades dance band with a group of friends. Its first engagement was to play at the opening of the new parochial hall.
He formed the Tony Chambers Orchestra in 1948 and toured the country playing at weddings and dance halls.
He married Tess Warde from Westport in 1947. She pre-deceased him in 1985.
During the 1950s when the film The Quiet Man was being made in the nearby village of Cong, he played for its stars, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and Barry Fitzgerald, as his orchestra was then resident at Ashford Castle Hotel.
In the 1960s in the Great Southern Hotel, Mulranny, the orchestra played for John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who had come to buy an island in Clew Bay. Lennon asked for Bill Haley numbers, but he also got Moonlight in Mayo.
As well as his orchestra, Tony Chambers was the local rate collector for 33 years and before that sold insurance policies for Irish Life for 10 years. He had a life-long association with Fine Gael and was a director of elections for the late Patrick Lindsay, who was a TD for Mayo North and later became Master of the High Court.
Every two years, the orchestra played at The Monasterboice Inn in Co Louth. It was owned by the late Paddy Donegan, a Minister for Defence in the 1973-77 Coalition, whose "thundering disgrace" remarks caused President Cearbhall O Dalaigh to resign in 1976. On those occasions, Paddy Donegan used to join the band on the bongo drums.
Tony Chambers pointed out, at the time, that he also played at numerous official Fianna Fail functions, "which proves that music transcends all barriers". He also recalled playing under difficult conditions when the lighting failed and had to be replaced by the headlights of a car reflected in the dance hall mirrors. "The music and dancing went on and the courting was great." A new era opened for Tony Chambers in 1982 when film maker, Pat O'Connor, decided to shoot the The Ballroom of Romance in north-west Mayo. He had intended to make the film at Glenfarne, Co Leitrim, where the story was set, but the dance hall there looked too modern. Instead, he chose the disused dance hall at Ballycroy and asked Tony Chambers to be the saxophone player. By coincidence, he had played at the opening night of the hall over 30 years earlier in 1948.
The orchestra, which won two Hall of Fame awards, has now been taken over by his son, Frank, who has been playing with it for 40 years.
Tony Chambers is survived by sons, Jim, Frank and Tony Og, daughters, Sarah, Anne, Deirdre and Maeve, and sister Bea Egan.
Anthony (Tony) Chambers: born 1922; died, April 2001