Always Me
Dickie Rock
Merlin 24.99

Are Ye the Band?
Jimmy Higgins
Mentor Books 14

THE showband era is what Ireland got instead of '50s rock 'n' roll and '60s rebellion. While Jim Morrison was kicking in the doors of perception and Ken Kesey was driving around in the acid bus, back in Ireland, Father Michael Cleary was officiating at your cousin's wedding and Brendan Boyer was having a meat-tea at the parish house.

In this context Dickie Rock is the closest Ireland got to Elvis, and as a showbiz workhorse he's worthy of respect . . . but his autobiography is a strange book.

Firstly, it reads like a transcript of a long interview that isn't quite edited for reading. Secondly, if this was a novel, Rock would be an unreliable narrator. He is often overly defensive about his motivations, and his own accounts of the tabloid-friendly stories from his life seem naively implausible.

Born in the Dublin suburb of Cabra West, Richard Rock rose from lowly choirboy to crooning sex symbol with the Miami Showband by the time he was in his late teens (we can't say exactly, he declines to tell his age). However, the way Rock tells the story there wasn't a huge difference between his shortlived career as an apprentice welder and his tenure as Ireland's premier showband singer. He simply switched trades. So what this isn't is a nostalgic romp around the showband era. For some of the real energy and joy of that time you'd be better served with Jimmy Higgins' excellent Are Ye the Band? , which gives a sense of the fun, craziness and camaraderie that fuelled the 600-or-so showbands that criss-crossed the countryside in the '60s.

However, in Dickie's hands being one of the biggest stars in 1960s Ireland is a serious business like running a cash and carry, shearing a sheep, or building a multi-story car-park. It doesn't seem like much fun at all. He seems obsessed with money (although he proclaims himself baffled at his reputation for miserliness). It seems to be the driving motivation for everything he does with his career.

Dickie is, by his own account, one of the unluckiest men in the world . . . the only time he drives without tax and insurance he gets caught. More crucially, the only time he is unfaithful to his wife, the woman gets pregnant.

He spends many pages recounting the pain this caused to his family when it was revealed, but his cries of remorse seem disingenuous when coupled with the annoyance and anger he feels at the press. Tragically he also has little relationship with his illegitimate daughter. "I've met the girl on a number of occasions in the past but I don't have any father-daughter relationship with her, " he says. "I sincerely believe that for her sake and for the sake of my family, this is probably for the best."

Which brings me back to unreliable narration . . . as a man born in (probably) the 1940s, Rock thinks that there's nobility in hiding things from people.

Wearing a wig isn't personal vanity but a responsibility he feels to his fans. When he surreptitiously asks for and gets more money than his Miami band-mates, he suggests that the management keeps it a secret.

Similarly it's clear that he had no intention of ever telling his family about his illegitimate daughter until he finds out the press are going to report it. He actually seems to think that keeping his wife in the dark is the correct thing to do.

This all compounds the reality that as a man from the post-war generation he believes that certain things are meant to stay secret . . . which gives what should be an open account of his life quite a guarded feeling.

The "real" Dickie Rock does appear occasionally. His pain is palpable when discussing the awful tragedies that have afflicted his family . . . from his brother's young death, to the death of his disabled oldest son, and the heroin problem of his middle son Richard.

And on some occasions you get a sense of the real excitement he feels on the stage. However, for the most part, Dickie takes himself and how he appears too seriously to give us any real insight.

o this book wears the literary equivalent of fake-tan and a wig, croons down the middle of the road and leaves you hungry for the real thing . . . a biography of Elvis.