Joe Feeney

Joe Feeney was born on 15 August 1931 in Grand Island, Nebraska, to an Irish-American family, and had two brothers. His mother, Mary, supported him in all of his activities. He started singing as a boy soprano at St. Mary's Cathedral in Grand Island, his parish church, and sang in its choir. After graduating from St. Mary's Cathedral High School he landed a guest appearance on the program Youth Opportunity Hour. Find a Grave gives his original name as Joseph Gerald Feeney.

Feeney studied at St. Benedict's College in Atchison, Kansas, and at the University of Nebraska in the early 1950s. At Nebraska he studied opera, had the lead in a student production of La Boheme and entered and won several singing contests. He met his first wife, Georgia Lee Gryva, at the university, and they married while still students. After their second child was born he dropped out for financial reasons. He served in the United States Army during the Korean War era.

After military service Feeney won a spot on Arlene Francis's television talent program Talent Patrol, reported as 1955, and sold children's encyclopedias to support his young family. In 1956, while he was working at radio station WOW in Omaha, the station manager sent recordings of his voice to the Welk offices in Santa Monica, California. Lawrence Welk offered him a guest spot, and from 1957 he was a regular.

From 1957 to 1982, when the Welk show ended production, Feeney was the program's featured Irish tenor. Popular numbers included Danny Boy, Galway Bay, Sweet Leilani, My Wild Irish Rose, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and Be My Love. He sometimes performed alongside the show's pianist and organist Bob Ralston.

Feeney had a busy career away from the show. He sang for five United States presidents at the White House and performed at Carnegie Hall three times, as well as at venues from Disneyland to casinos and nightclubs. In 1975 he sang for Pope Paul VI at the canonization of Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first native-born American saint. He appeared at the Milwaukee Irish Fest in 1981, 1982 and 1985. In later years he toured as a duo with his son Chris and was a regular, with the Lennon Sisters and Jo Ann Castle, at the Lawrence Welk Theater in Branson, Missouri.

Feeney married Georgia Lee Gryva while they were students at the University of Nebraska, and they had ten children. Two of the children died before him. His surviving sons were Joe Jr., George Patrick, Chris, Sean, Tim and Matt, and his daughters Kathy and Georgia. His son Chris became an opera tenor and sang with him in concert, and Tim said the family's love of performing came from their father. Feeney loved to fish and golf, kept a garden, and at one time raised horses on a ranch in Simi Valley, California. He later lived in San Marcos in San Diego County.

Feeney's singing began in the Catholic Church, as a boy soprano in the choir of St. Mary's Cathedral in Grand Island, and he attended a Catholic high school and the Benedictine St. Benedict's College. One of the proudest moments of his concert career was singing for Pope Paul VI at the 1975 canonization of Elizabeth Ann Seton. He did not make other public statements about his beliefs that are documented in available sources.

For a generation of American viewers Joe Feeney was the voice of Danny Boy, and Welk audiences remembered him as the show's Irish tenor. Reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show on public television, and fan-uploaded performances online, keep his voice in circulation, and fans still single him out on social media. His son Chris continued the family's singing tradition.

Feeney recorded albums including Joe Feeney of The Lawrence Welk Show, catalogued by the Library of Congress. Hundreds of his Welk performances survive in broadcast and fan archives, and the Oklahoma public broadcaster OETA produced a short biography of him for its Lawrence Welk Show biographies series.

The Associated Press obituary, based on information from his family, said Feeney had been a starting quarterback at the University of Nebraska. The New York Times later published a correction stating that the university said he was a student there in the early 1950s but did not play for its football team. Sources also differ slightly on details: Find a Grave lists his birth date as 14 August 1931, while Wikipedia, the Library of Congress and Legacy give 15 August 1931, and survivor counts give eight or nine grandchildren.

Although he never smoked, Feeney was diagnosed with emphysema about a year before his death. His family believed he contracted it from decades of performing in smoky casinos and nightclubs. His last performance was in Syracuse, New York, in December 2007. He died on 16 April 2008 at a hospice in Carlsbad, California, aged 76, and his death was reported nationally by the Associated Press a week later. He is buried at Mission San Luis Rey Cemetery in Oceanside, California. His headstone reads "The Irish Tenor" and "Our Dad with the Golden Voice".