Sandy Kelly for RSVP Country(Image: Kate Nolan | Soul Sourced Elopements)
Sandy Kelly’s name is synonymous with Irish country music – a powerhouse voice that has graced stages for decades, capturing hearts with her unmistakable charm and resilience. Her incredible career saw her inducted into The Late Late Show Country Music Hall of Fame by presenter Patrick Kielty recently. While she is always upbeat, positive and chatty, the Sligo woman has faced her share of challenges over the years – both personal and professional – with grace and grit.
In this exclusive interview and photoshoot, Sandy opens up about the shock of being added to the Hall of Fame, the bittersweet memories of family life, including the death of her sister Barbara, and the joy she finds in both music and life.
Sandy, congratulations on being inducted into The Late Late Show Country Music Hall of Fame. What was it like when you found out live on TV?
I thought I was going up to sing a verse of Can The Circle Be Unbroken , which is a wonderful song. I thought there was going to be no stress because, if you remember last year, I sang Beyoncé. I thought I would avail of the free wine and the free hotel room and catch up with my friends. I have free travel so my friend Nuala and I booked the train to Dublin. That was the way I was coming at it.
The team on The Late Late Show are fabulous and I asked them if I could bring my grandson Frank, but all the audience members need to be over 18. She suggested that I bring him along to the dressing room while I performed. The dressing rooms are like cells, they’re tiny, so I couldn’t have him sitting in there all night. However, when I arrived at RTÉ I was put in the VIP dressing room with sandwiches, biscuits, a big screen television and a couch. I asked them why I was getting the VIP room, it still hadn’t clicked with me what was happening, and they said they thought I was bringing Frank with me.
I saw them bringing in the lights, but I thought it was for after-show interviews that they would insert afterwards.
What you saw on TV, that was my sincere reaction. In the end, I didn’t have time to take the free wine. I was on last and I would be doing a bad version of Riverdance if I had two glasses of wine before performing [jokes].
How did you feel at the time?
It was so emotional. I was thinking about my late sister, Barbara. She would normally be with me at things like that. I was singing at the anniversary show for The Miami Showband the Monday before and I had my daughter Barbara with me. I’m normally quite tired when I have Barbara for a few days (she’s had some health challenges). She’s great, but I’m getting old! When I got back my son Willie saw me and he said he would drive me to RTÉ. He didn’t know I had won either!
How does it feel to be recognised for all of the amazing work you have done in country music over the years?
I feel validated. I know that’s a strange word to use. I was originally a pop artist, I did the Eurovision and I sang in the showbands in the early 70s. I made the decision to move to country music in 1983 and I went to Big Tom for advice. He was so good and so kind to me, his manager actually managed my career.
Moving from pop to country wasn’t as easy as I thought because fans weren’t used to people like me singing country songs. I moved around the stage a lot more than people like Philomena Begley or Margo at the time. I remember Paschal Mooney telling me that nobody in country music lifted their knees that high. It took a while to get used to going from routines and choreography to being quiet and just singing. Some fans didn’t accept me, but my first single was a duet with Big Tom, he gave me his blessing and the song went to number one in the country charts. Even at that, a handful of his audience would get up and leave when I would take to the stage.
What was that like?
I didn’t care [laughs]. It was the same people who did it every time. I thought it was funny, actually, and they knew which part of Big Tom’s show I would come out for and the handbags would be lifted up and they would shuffle out of the seat.
Do you think they saw you as a threat?
I wouldn’t like to say that because everyone had such a great career. Back then, country music wasn’t cool and my pop music peers thought I was mad. I was always singing Crystal Gayle, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris songs in my pop band because they were crossover artists. I ended up working with most of those. I felt validated, but not in a smug way. Johnny Cash helped with that too. If someone like him reaches out and wants to work with you, who is to say you’re not a country artist.
Was there a sense of validation when you worked with Johnny Cash?
Yes, but not in an egotistical way. It was like holding onto your dad or your grandad’s hand and saying ‘I’m doing alright’. I present myself as very confident on stage, because I learned my craft from the age of three, I’m very disciplined. My grandad was very strict on how you presented yourself and I grew up with that. If I wasn’t in sequins on stage, I was looked down upon. And if I went to the shop I was also looked down upon as the showgirl who lived in a caravan. That stayed with me, but it hasn’t made me a victim, it’s made me an achiever. It’s always there, that feeling that I’m not good enough.
How is your daughter Barbara? You’ve been very open about caring for her and her special needs.
She’s had some health challenges that have been going on for about two years, where she has been suffering from really bad headaches. We were in Beaumont Hospital in Dublin recently and I was a year working on that because it’s not that easy to see a brain surgeon for a scan and it’s not that easy to get Barbara to go with you to do it. Barbara has a shunt in her brain, which drains fluid and stops her getting any more brain damaged than she has already. I saw the scan and there was a huge sense of relief when the surgeon pointed out there was no swelling and the shunt was working. A weight was lifted off me. We came back to Sligo and we got a taxi to The Glasshouse for dinner. Barbara had two West Coast Coolers and I had three glasses of wine. We celebrated my award as well, she was delighted for me.
It’s important to mark the good times.
I had a few challenges lately. My ex-husband Mike’s cancer is back, he got the diagnosis during the summer and he had lung surgery in Galway six weeks ago. I was back in oncology with him and that as well as Barbara’s scan really put everything in perspective.
How do you stay positive?
Having a sense of humour. All of my family have a great sense of humour and Barbara has too. She’s hilarious. If my grandson Frank isn’t going to be a comedian, I don’t know what he will be. Laughing through the worst of times is a help. You acknowledge what happened and you feel the pain. I remember when my sister Barbara died it felt like a punch in the stomach. That pain is still there, but not to that extent. You don’t laugh at the situations, obviously, but you find humour in them. I think back to funny things my sister would have done and there are many.
Today marks the anniversary of her death, as we do the interview and photoshoot. How do you remember her?
She was so bubbly and beautiful. So many people miss Barbara and still talk about her. She was a very loud person. She would be walking her dogs on one side of the street and you would hear her like a foghorn at the other side. However, what people didn’t see is that she had challenges, mentally. That took a toll on her. She never spoke to us about it and if we broached the subject she would get angry. Looking at the help there is, it saddens me to think what if she’d reached out. I regret the what ifs, the unanswered questions and that we didn’t get a chance to sit down and work it out. I’m not being dismissive of her taking her own life, but I wish she allowed someone to help She distanced herself from family in the end and I believe that happens sometimes.
Do those questions you have get easier or harder as time goes on?
I think I’ve stopped beating myself up. Barbara was only eight when my mother died and I became the mother figure at age 16. I was the one telling her she couldn’t do this and she couldn’t do that. We didn’t have a sister relationship, it was more of a mother/daughter relationship. She would take exception when I asked her to do something and that continued when she began working with me in the band. We were very close and we loved each other dearly, but we were two different people. To answer your question, does it become easier? The pain never goes away and the unanswered questions still pop into my head. There was a while where I thought somebody did this to her, she couldn’t have died by suicide. First came disbelief, then anger, I was so angry with her for taking her own life. She has a beautiful daughter called Sandie, she was living with me up until recently and now she’s in Australia. How could she leave her? Then came the grief, there’s a whole mixture of emotions when somebody decides to leave you.
How is Sandie getting on in Australia?
Fantastic. I miss her terribly. It was my sister Barbara’s birthday yesterday and her anniversary today, normally we’d go for dinner together. We cried and laughed together. I Facetimed her last night and they were planning a dinner out together and a few bottles of wine. We don’t sit in a corner wailing. The year before last my album launch was happening and I got a text from my record label to say it was on October 8, Barbara’s birthday, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t change the date because I thought it was meant to be. With how special that night was, it was like she was there. I’m not airy fairy, but there was a butterfly around the stage all night long.
How’s your ex-husband Mike? He lives with you and he is recovering from lung cancer surgery.
I wanted the divorce. There’s nobody else in his life or mine, we just grew apart. When we went to the courthouse for the divorce the judge asked if we were sure because we had been sitting chatting on the bench before we went in and we sat together as happy as Larry in the room. We went to the pub afterwards, I had a glass of wine and Mike had a cup of tea. We’ve never missed a birthday, Christmas or New Year together.
Is that amicable relationship important for Barbara and her stability?
And for my grandson, and son. It’s important for the family unit. We all sit around the table at family occasions. We met in the Fairways Showband when we were 19, we got married at 23 and William was born when I was 25. We were children. I got to travel the world with work and I grew into a different person than I was at 19. We’ve a long history together and I’ve a four bedroomed house, so there’s no reason we can’t live together. My son and I are nursing him through his cancer recovery, I know he would do the same for me.
How’s your own health?
It’s fine. I’ve never done Botox and I never get facials. When I go to work I paint up well.
You recently appeared on RTÉ’s Keys To My Life. You revisited and reflected on your life, the highs and the lows over the years, what was that like?
Brendan Courtney [the presenter] was amazing to work with we had a lot of fun together. We revisited my grandmother’s house where I had been left behind as a child while my parents went off with the show. There were no telephones back then, so I had no idea where they were and I never knew when they were coming back. My mother would send letters and sometimes chocolate, but that was it. I never thought I’d get to stand on the stage of that theatre in London where I did Patsy Cline again, so that was emotional. When you get to my age a lot of people are gone, which is sad.
Does that make you aware of your own mortality?
It does. The pecking order is painfully close to me because there are so many people gone before me. My mum died at the age of 47 and my sister Barbara was only 57. That’s sad. You start thinking about your age and not being able to do things and be independent. There are times when people ask me to do things and I have to stop and question if I will be able to. I also have to think about my daughter Barbara and who will look after her and what will happen when I’m not here.
Is that a big worry?
It’s a huge worry. I’ll be 72 in February, and my grandson Frank is 11. I’d love to live to his 21st birthday because I adore him. He’s a gift. Sometimes I look at him and wonder if he’s real. He’s so good with Barbara and he’s learning a great life lesson through knowing her. When his friends come around, Barbara swears like a sailor and is likely to say anything, and he will take them into a corner and explain that his aunty has special needs.
Your son Willie got married last year, tell us about it.
He got married to a beautiful Estonian woman in Estonia and it has been a blessing. We’ve only got a small family and now we have this extended Estonian family, they’re wonderful. We visit them and they visit us. They have a lovely culture.
How’s life in your 70s?
Life in my 70s is probably different to most because I’m still working a lot. I’m sure retirement is great, but I’m sure it also challenges people because all of a sudden you don’t have a purpose. I feel honoured and lucky that I’m still asked to work. My health has been really good, thank God. I fell and fractured my knee badly after a show in Galway three years ago and that has impacted my performance a bit. But maybe at 71 I shouldn’t be running around the stage like Madonna [laughs].
So, no sign of hanging up the microphone?
To be honest, I’m not going to go on forever. Philomena Begley is my best friend in country music and I totally get why she’s here, there and everywhere because she absolutely loves singing every night of the week. I’m different. I was singing six nights a week from the age of three. I feel like I’m 150, I really do. There will be a time where I say goodbye and it might not be that far away. One of my regrets is not spending more time with my children because I am away so much. I can’t get that time back. My son Willie was in a very successful band. He decided to come off the road and co-produces Sligo Live and has 12 artists from all over the world including Glen Campbell’s daughter and Johnny Cash’s eldest grandson. He’s at home with his son now because he knows what it’s like to have a parent that’s absent. He grew up learning every aspect of the music business and he’s in the perfect job. I love to spoil my grandson and that’s why I won’t go on forever, I want time at home.
