Tuam first for johnnys wests awake

ALL through his singing career, one of the songs that is closely identified with Johnny McEvoy is The West’s Awake. But the balladeer says that it was as a teenager that he first sang the song in Tuam back in the mid-1960s.
“At the time I was singing with my friend Mick Crotty as The Ramblers Two and we managed to get a guest spot at a dance in the Las Vegas Ballroom on Dublin Road.
“I have no idea how we got that gig or what showband was playing that night but I remember the journey down on a beautiful summer’s day as I learned the words of The West’s Awake during that trip. I performed it in public for the first time that night,” says Johnny.
Now, many decades later, he will sing the song again in Tuam as part of his live show in the Ard Rí House Hotel this Friday night February 20.