Singer. A native of Mullingar, Ireland, he is best known for his 1969 recording, "Make Me An Island." The single written by Albert Hammond went to the number three spot on the UK Singles Chart, and number one in fourteen other countries. A regular chart-topper following the release of "Make Me An Island", Dolan continued his successes well through the 1960s and into the 2000s. Other hit singles included "Love You More And More Everyday", "My Own Peculiar Way", "Aching Breaking Heart", "Pretty Brown Eyes", "I Need You", "Sister Mary", and "Hush Hush Maria". Born the youngest of eight children into a musical family Joe became interested in music as a young child. He began playing the washboard and would play while his sisters sang and danced. After the death of his mother and father, Dolan and his brother Ben began a dance hall act and began playing at local pubs and other venues before joining the Drifters Showband in 1964. While pursuing his music career he also worked part time as a newspaper compositor for the Westmeath Examiner Newspaper. After his successful first hit single, he began collaborating with Italian songwriter and producer Robert Danova, and songwriter Peter Yellowstone in the 1970s. During this period he also began touring, becoming the first western artist to perform in the Soviet Union in 1978, and went onto make his American debut in Las Vegas that year, returning in 1981 for a six week engagement. He continued to tour for many years before he also started his own record company, Gable in the 1990s. His other work includes the 1993 single, "Clara", the album, "Endless Magic", another single, "Good Looking Woman", which he recorded with a puppet named Dustin The Turkey, and the 1998 tribute album, "Joe's 90's", which featured tracks by David Bowie, Oasis, REM, Bruce Springsteen, Blur, and U2. The last couple of years of his life were spent in ill health although he continued to work. In 2006 he had a hip replacement, and in December 2007 he had to cancel a series of concerts due to exhaustion. That month he became worse and on December 26 he passed away at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin from a brain hemorrhage.