Max Boyce was born in Glynneath. His family was originally from Ynyshir in the Rhondda Valley. His mother was Mary Elizabeth Harries. A month preceding Boyce's birth, his father, Leonard Boyce, died in an explosion in the coal pit where he worked. [1] At the age of fifteen, Boyce left school, went to live with his grandfather, and worked in a colliery "for nearly eight years". [2] In his early twenties, he managed to find alternative work in the Metal Box factory, Melin, Neath, as an electrician's apprentice, but his earlier mining experiences were to influence his music considerably in later years. [3]

Competing in elephant polo in Nepal for what became the 1986 film To The North Of Kathmandu, his team, featuring Billy Connolly, Ringo Starr and Bond girl Barbara Bach, scored only one goal in the entire tournament. The song has many verses, but revolves around the simple chorus: "And we were singing hymns and arias; 'Land of my Fathers', 'Ar hyd y nos'." New version of Hymns and Arias for Swans home game". Wales Online. 19 August 2011 . Retrieved 12 July 2017. I received a letter from a nurse who asked me to write something to lift the spirits of the frontline workers of the NHS in the most trying of times. In 1982, Boyce went to the United States to be filmed participating at a training camp held by the Dallas Cowboys in California. The resulting four-part series, Max Boyce Meets The Dallas Cowboys was screened by Channel 4 in November that year. He returned to America in early 1984 to try his hand at being a cowboy in the rodeos of the Midwestern United States. The result of his bull riding and rodeo clown antics was Boyce Goes West, which also became a four-part series that was broadcast in June 1984.Max Boyce, singer-songwriter, poet and entertainer, was born in the village of Glynneath, south Wales, where he still lives with his wife, Jean. Despite the fact that his father was killed in a mining explosion a month before Max was born, Max went on to work underground in the local colliery at the age of sixteen – a profession he remained in for over a decade.

Max Boyce’s career has enjoyed a resurgence since the late 1990s. At Christmas time in 1998, BBC Wales screened An Evening With Max Boyce, which broke Welsh viewing records. [1] The following year, in 1999, he performed at the opening ceremonies of the 1999 Rugby World Cup in the Millennium Stadium, and of the Welsh Assembly. Not long after, Boyce was included on the 2000 New Year Honours list, and received an MBE from Prince Charles in a ceremony at Cardiff Castle on 15 March that year. According to Boyce, "He (the Prince) said he was surprised it took them so long" to accord him this honour. [15] His 70th birthday was celebrated with an hour-long programme [18] shown on BBC One Wales on 25 September 2013, recorded in front of a live celebrity audience. [ citation needed] Max Boyce, a comedian much beloved in the clubs of the English-speaking and industrialized south, appeared at a Royal Command variety performance in London in 1981, and when he ended his bubbling hilarious act with a song of compasionate lyricism about the sadness of the mining valleys, the audience seemed to respond with baffled, if not affronted, dismay.’ Glynneath RFC". Glynneath Online. Archived from the original on 15 April 2007 . Retrieved 27 June 2007.

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Maxwell Boyce, MBE (born 27 September 1943) is a Welsh comedian, singer and entertainer. He rose to fame in the mid-1970s with an act that combined musical comedy with his passion for rugby union and his origins in a South Wales mining community. Boyce's We All Had Doctors' Papers (1975) remains the only comedy album to have topped the UK Albums Chart and he has sold more than two million albums in a career spanning four decades.