29 May 2018

1968 - the year NZ music took off

From Afternoons, 2:21 pm on 29 May 2018
Larry's Rebels

Larry's Rebels Photo: Audioculture

Of the 22 Kiwi singles that hit the charts in 1968, 19 reached the top ten - making it the best year for homegrown music until very recently.

Music historian Grant Gillanders makes New Zealand back catalogue compilations and his most recent is on the music of 1968.

He says the step change in quality was sparked by a big improvement in recording technology in 1967.

“HMV got a new studio and a four-track recording desk and all of a sudden you’ve got a few good producers and A&R people and the quality of recording was world class.”

Grant talks us through a few of the singles released that year.

Larry’s Rebels - Everybody’s Girl

Larry's Rebels were the band that year, and the band the previous two years. They would have been The Exponents of their time a good pop band who wrote their own stuff.

“In that period when they had all those hits it took Split Enz ten years to have that many hits while they did it in 22 months.”

Larry's Rebels

Larry's Rebels Photo: Audioculture

Frankie Stevens and the Castaways – Baby What I Mean

“Everybody knows Frankie but they don’t know he goes that far back. It’s his first single and it’s recorded in Australia – it’s typical Frankie it’s just full-on.”

Frankie Stevens and the Castaways

Frankie Stevens and the Castaways Photo: www.frankiestevens.com

Gene Pierson - You Got To Me

Born Giancarlo Salvestrin, he was an Italian-born Australian artist who came to New Zealand and changed his name to Gene Pierson to escape the draft to Vietnam.

This is a local recording done in Stebbings studio. Gene eventually returned to Australia and became a successful manager and promoter..

Gene Pierson with fans in the late 1960s.

Gene Pierson with fans in the late 1960s. Photo: Audioculture

The Avengers - Love Hate Revenge

A sort of a “manufactured group” Grant says. Dalvanius Prime named them in a competition.

A dark little ditty, it’s a cover of a song by obscure English band Episode Six, two of whose members, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, went on to form Deep Purple.

“It was one of the big hits of the year. It’s so ingrained into the Kiwi psyche that Margaret Urlich recorded it for her 1999 platinum album of Kiwi cover versions Second Nature - possibly not realising that it is not a Kiwi composition.

The Avengers did the definitive version, Grant says.

Ray Woolf and The Avengers 1967.

Ray Woolf and The Avengers 1967. Photo: courtesy of Ray Woolf.

Yolande Gibson - Hush

Yolande Gibson was the darling of TV and magazine covers for a long period. She was more at ease singing ballads and middle-of-the-road material, but here she's singing a brassy little pop number.

It should have been a hit, but wasn’t, says Grant.

Gibson lives on the Gold Coast now and has made her living doing Vera Lynn tribute shows. 

The Fourmyula - Come With Me

The Fourmyula

The Fourmyula Photo: Supplied

“Frankie Stevens was The Fourmyula’s original singer and when he left the group they contemplated chucking it in. But thankfully they got a new singer and regrouped.”

They won a National Battle of the Bands earlier in the year which led to them signing with HMV. In the last four months of ‘68 they had 3 Top 10 records.

Allison Durbin - I Have Loved Me A Man

This was the biggest hit of the year and the winner of the Loxene Gold Disc Award. Durbin went on to have a very successful career in Australia, she was named Australia’s Queen of Pop in 1969, 1970 and 1971.

These were her golden years, her career and life took a downward turn her life blighted by addiction, drug convictions, stints in rehab and then imprisonment in the early 2000s on trafficking charges.

Allison Durbin

Allison Durbin Photo: Wikicommons