This half page advert was placed in New Spotlight magazine by Joe Dolan in June 1968.
Elsewhere in the same issue of the magazine there was also this half page feature on the same story with more and quotes from Joe. See below (click to enlarge)
scanned by Brand New Retro from New Spotlight June 1968
Oh me oh my!
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there’s a real sadness to this..not once is the word gay mentioned..the shame and the fear of the times….i assume that was the thing at the heart of it…i fancied him so much… great voice too.
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He had to put up with a lot of speculation about his sexuality throughout his career.
Only recently realised how popular he was. First Irish act to appear on Top Of The Pops and had a UK no 3 a year later with Make Me an Island
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Can anyone shine any light on the nature of the rumours. It does sound on the face of it that it relates to his sexuality but , as pointed out above, but I don’t like to speculate.
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great singer, had his tape in the car for ages.
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The rumours were actually nothing to do with his sexuality, but an even more scurrilous suggestion that he had written a few of his own songs and even dared to perform one of them in his ‘live’ set, from time to time. So outrageous and offensive was this idea here at the time, that he pulled out all the stops to dissociate himself from something as original and dangerous as being responsible for a self-composed song. The rumours of being gay, he just laughed off as harmless banter…
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Spoke with Joe a few times, doing showbiz stories for the Mirror. He was a lovely man and he probably was gay. I sort of suspect he wasn’t comfortable with it himself, neither was Ireland especially the midlands. He probably had no alternative but to put up the reward. To come out and say you were a queer (no one said gay then) would have been comercial (and probably actual) suicice.
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Nu conteaza orientarea sexuala,a fost problema lui personala.Fanii il iubesc pentru vocea unica,pentru muzica minunata si pentru omul bun cu suflet de aur.Dumnezeu sa il odihneasca in pace !
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