Red Hurley

Red Hurley
Red Hurley in 1976
Background information
Birth name	Brian Hurley
Born	(1949-11-11) 11 November 1949 (age 67)
Genres	Pop,easy listening, gospel.
Occupation(s)	Vocalist
Years active	1969–present

Brian "Red" Hurley (born 11 September 1949) is an Irish popular singer whose career has spanned several decades from the 1970s to 2016. He is principally known as a solo artist, although he has performed with various bands and pop groups, most notably 'The Nevada', with whom he enjoyed his first series of number one records in the 1970s. In 1976 he represented Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "When". Red Hurley tours regularly, performing at some of Ireland's principal concert venues. In August 2014 Hurley was one of the musical soloists chosen to perform at the State Funeral of former Irish Prime Minister, Albert Reynolds.

Hurley was born in 1949 and grew up in Milltown, Dublin, with four brothers, Joe, Liam, Des and Fran and two sisters, Olive and Flo. His sister Olive is an Irish dance teacher. His father spent some time as a professional musician, but later worked as a public servant (Dublin City Council). His brother Fran has been his manager at different times and his brother Liam was Red's record producer and arranger in the early phase of his career. Red has been married twice, first to top Dublin model Patricia Ward (the couple divorced in the late 1980s) and later to his longtime partner, dancer and performance coach, Norma (his present wife). He has 3 daughters, Stephanie, Kristina and Kimberley. His youngest daughter Stephanie (15) has begun to pursue a career in the music business.

Hurley started his career in 1969 as lead vocalist with The Colours. In 1970, he went on to form his first band, The Wheels, Hurley released several successful singles during this period with The Wheels including: Isadora, Take Me Tonight and Poor Man's Roses, all of which made it into the Irish charts with Isadora being the best known of his hits from this period.

In early 1971,Red joined The Nevada, one of Ireland's top pop acts of that era, quickly becoming their most popular ever lead singer with a string of number 1 hits many penned by British songwriters Les Reed and Barry Mason specifically for Red. These include 'Sometimes. Kiss Me Goodbye and I never said Goodbye'. He enjoyed success with The Nevada until he left in 1974 to form his own "Red Hurley Band". The hits continued during the subsequent decade with 'Love Is All' (his biggest Reed/Mason hit and one of the biggest selling singles of the 1970s in Ireland), 'Broken Promises', 'Tennessee Special', 'You're my Day You're my Night' and many others, all huge chart hits in Ireland. Red toured extensively right up to the late 1980s. Throughout this time, despite domestic success in Ireland, where he was a major star, significant international success eluded him. Though signed to 'Redbus' one of the UKs premier agencies, the general feeling was that the marketing of a major Irish pop star was difficult at a time when the bombing campaign of the Provisional IRA on the UK mainland was at its height. Red's obvious Irish identity was considered an uphill battle for showbiz promoters in common with other Irish pop icons Joe Dolan and Dickie Rock, who also failed to find a significant enduring UK audience at that time despite being major stars in Ireland. Red's overall record in the Irish Charts places him among the biggest chart acts of all time in Ireland, with over 20 hits and five number ones. Altogether he has recorded over 500 songs in a career spanning the early seventies to the present day. He is still having chart hits in the 21st century giving him one of the longest chart careers in Irish show-business history.