Denny Doherty was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia on November 29, 1940, the youngest of five children. He grew up in Halifax's North End in a devout Catholic household. His father was a dockworker and Doherty has described his mother as "a housewife and mystic". Doherty and three friends, Richard Sheehan, Eddie Thibodeau, and Mike O'Connell, began their musical career in 1956 with a band called the Hepsters.