Irish Coffee are a hard rock band from Aalst, East Flanders, Belgium, that officially started playing in 1970. They are best remembered for their single "Masterpiece" which made it to the Belgian charts. The band's music was a combination of hard rock and blues rock, with searing lead guitar parts and strong vocals. The band broke up in 1975 but reformed in 2002 with a new organist and bassist.
Irish Coffee's origin can be traced back to another band called The VooDoo, which was formed in 1970. They played only covers by bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Who, and The Kinks, in a club called "El Gringo", near Aalst, Belgium. There they met Louis de Vries, manager of The Pebbles, with whom they signed a contract. They changed their name to Irish Coffee, with the band at this time consisting of guitarist and singer William Souffreau, guitarist Jean Van Der Schueren, bassist Willy De Bisschop, keyboard player Paul Lambert and drummer Hugo Verhoye. The band went to Antwerp to record their first single, "Masterpiece" (b/w "The Show"), in an 8-track recording studio. "Masterpiece" achieved success on the Belgian charts, reaching number 5 on HUMO magazine's Single National list and was played during concerts and on television shows across Belgium and France. Since they shared the same manager, Irish Coffee played many gigs with The Pebbles, and they also supported well-known bands and artists such as Dr Feelgood, Colosseum, Chris Farlowe, Uriah Heep, Focus, and Chicken Shack, among others.
In 1971 the band's self-titled album was released on Triangle Records, with all the tracks on the LP having been written by Souffreau and Van Der Schueren. In September 1971, a single coupling the songs "Carry On" and "Child" was released, again on Triangle Records, and these songs were later added as bonus tracks to the 1992 reissue of the Irish Coffee album on the Voodoo label. The band went on to play so many concerts that Hugo Verhoye decided to leave, and he was replaced by Raf Lenssens before the song "Down Down Down" was released as a single at the end of the year. In the spring of 1973, Jean Van Der Schueren left the band to continue his classical guitar studies, and he was replaced by Luc De Clus, who had been playing guitar since the age of five. In June 1974, "Witchy Lady" (b/w "I'm Hers") was released on the Barclay Records label and received quite a large amount of radio airplay but unfortunately failed to reach the charts.
Original line-up
William Souffreau - lead vocals, guitar
Jean Van Der Schueren - guitar
Willy De Bisschop - bass guitar
Paul Lambert - organ
Hugo Verhoye - drums
Luc De Clus - guitar on the "Witchy Lady" single
Raf Lenssens - drums on the "Down Down Down" and "Witchy Lady" singles
Dirk Dierickx - backing vocals on the "Masterpiece" single
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Coffee_%28band%29
