<Home> <Bands> <Musicians> <Venues & Places> <Reunions> <Contacts List> <Anthems> <Search>
First published January 2009, last updated October 2016
Bill can be contacted at hinemoastreet@hotmail.com
To view photos of some of Bill's bands (Click here)
Famous artists have coffee with Bill at Santos after their Auckland concerts (Click here)
Bill's YouTube uploads of recordings by Ray Woolf and The Avengers, Bob D Five, Ray Woolf and The Newsounds, Freddie Keil and The Kavaliers, Bridget Allen backed by Trinity (Click here)
'Where are they now' article about Bill (July 2016) (Click here)
Photos & Memorabilia - Auckland 60's and 70's Reunions
Freddie
Keil and The Kavaliers from
Billy Belton’s perspective as a
member for 5 years. Not to be
confused with a 60’s 70’s retro band with the same name that currently plays
around Auckland.
I
don’t know the exact details of the actual birth of The
Kavaliers as I joined after it had been formed about 2 years as far as I
can ascertain.
Freddie Keil
came from the Keil Isles dynasty and due to some split up formed his own bands
firstly The Zodiacs and then The
Kavaliers. Freddie a German
Samoan had the looks of a tanned Elvis and worked as a dry cleaner so his
stylish American styled clothes imported directly from America were immaculate
[remember in these times the only way to buy imported clothing or even Levis
jeans was from seaman off the English ships in our ports as all clothing was
locally made], he was sharp, and the ladies adored him.
He was an organised and dynamic band leader, he chose our clothes, our
playlists, and we all enjoyed working for him without any disagreements.
His
voice was a bit pitchy but his delivery of the songs plus the total package more
than made up for this. He had a
constant supply of American recordings so we were able to do covers of all the
popular American music. We followed
the styles of Bobby Darin, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry,
Elvis Presley, and all the American singers at this time. During
this period a lot of NZ bands were following either the old English pre-Beatles
sound or were “Orchestra Type” or “Trad Jazz” dance bands.
I
had a ball playing with the band from 17 years old for about 5 years as a rhythm
guitarist; [The bigger bands had a distinct lead or rhythm guitarist and players
didn’t swap tasks] we had Jimmy Murphy
as our more than competent lead guitarist for most of the time until Billy
Peters [a very showy echo effect type Showband player] joined us in the
later days when Jimmy went to America to pursue his singing career.
This changed our guitar sound from the jazz/big band style of Jimmy’s
full bodied Levin semi acoustic
cutaway to Billy’s Stratocaster
that sounded more Shadows style. We
had a raunchy tenor sax player called Dave
Paul who was joined at various times by a number of other tenor sax players
mainly from one of the Maori Showbands
to give the big sound of twin sax’s that we listened to on radio in this era.
On
bass guitar we had Brian [Tuffy] Smith [remember Bass Guitars had only just been
invented in the late 50’s] and David
[Little Dave] Smith on Piano [He still plays keyboards today].
He was a fabulous, music reading piano player who could play like Floyd
Crammer or Fats Domino and he had
a car and a big amplifier which enabled me to originally get started with bands,
as I had neither being 14 and still at school.
I gratefully owe him my first chances in music.
Dave
helped me, when as a school boy, I took a bus to answer a newspaper
advertisement to join firstly a dance band which then led to Jeff
Bolton’s Commodores [This band
had two great guitarists Bob Wynyard later
of The Sundowners and then
Sonny Manahera] and a short stint with a Shadows
Band featuring Tui Timoti on lead
guitar before we joined The
Kavaliers together. My
music interest started with a few years of classical piano lessons.
I was then taught guitar by The
Keil Isles [a hugely successful band] as they lived next door and my parents
had bought me an electric guitar that I loaned to Herma
Keil in exchange for guitar lessons.
The
Kavaliers drummer
was Vic Williams. [Who we
now know as a food and wine expert] The
story started when I bumped into him in Queen Street one day in about 1961.
He offered Little Dave and I positions in The
Kavaliers that were being vacated by their guitarist Johnny Bradfield and a Piano player called Jimmy Langabeer. Brian
[Tuffy] Smith also replaced “Yuk”
Harrison at this time. Yuk
later played with The Brew, Max Merrit’s
Meteors, and The Invaders amongst
others. This was a huge break for
Dave and I in that it meant we had made it into the successful league of bands
playing nearly ever night. I was
able to repay Vic’s huge favour years later when I was able to offer him the
drumming spot at Tommos Place after
drummers Tony Hopkins and Frank Gibson junior had left. [This
band was Trinity with Mike
Harvey and originally Ray Woolf
which evolved much later into Salty Dogg.]
The
Kavaliers recorded
11 singles and an LP all covers of American music plus the band backed countless
other artists for the Zodiac record
label as this was before session musicians and it was usual to use complete
bands to back other solo artists on recordings.
I don’t ever remember receiving any money for these recordings but we
were happy to do them and just loved playing music anywhere anytime.
A
reward for both The Keil Isles
and The Kavaliers was the large
mainly American cars that we all owned. We
had various Chevy Impalas, Pontiacs, Ford Customlines, Dodge Diplomats, Zephyr
Zodiacs, Little Dave even had a brand new EJ Holden Premier, and later after Max
Merritt came to town with his red XK150, I bought a string of Mark 2 Jaguars
these were all purchased by our excellent earnings from the continuous work.
We even encountered our first tax problems which we didn’t understand
but we ended up paying off IRD and there after being in the Tax System which I
imagine was quite rare amongst musicians then.
One
great experience was when we travelled to Christchurch for the weekend to play
at one of their top venues; I think this was our first time on an aeroplane.
At this time bands only played in their own areas and didn’t tour.
Most weekends we played at a regular circuit of rural Waikato Halls and
we had a great following around this area because of it.
The Kavaliers also played
regular “Teenage Club” gigs in suburban halls with crowds of up to 1000
coming to hangout and dance at the same spot each week.
There were a few fights but without drugs and alcohol they normally had a
great atmosphere and were very “happy” places to play to receptive
audiences.
We
admired the Maori Showbands and whenever possible went to watch them at the Maori
Community Centre by Victoria Park. They
were the best musicians around and had slick presentations.
They had choreographed moves well before The
Shadows, a-la the American groups. They
executed precision dance moves, they played guitars behind their heads, and they
played 2 or 3 players to one guitar. We
copied many of their routines as best we could and they allowed us to sit in
with them at times which was most enjoyable and taught us a lot.
It was not uncommon for musicians from different bands to fill in for
each other and do one off gigs together, it was a friendly time for musicians,
and we all knew each other well.
Eventually
the laws changed and Sunday night movies came in, pubs opened later with live
bands, and the “Teenage Clubs” which formed the mainstay of our work closed.
The beginnings of dedicated venues arrived and we started a regular spot
at a place called The Sherilee later
to be called The Galaxy a
huge amount of bands played here as it ran 6 nights a week plus Sunday
afternoons, with 2 stages featuring at least 2 bands plus guest solo artists.
The Meteors
and Invaders came to town The
Beatles became popular and the sound of bands changed.
Aldred Stebbing of Zodiac
Records called Dave [Sax Player] and myself to a meeting without any warning and
sacked us on the spot to downsize the band for economic reasons plus he wanted a
different sound. I was stunned as
the rest of the band didn’t even speak to us either before or after despite 5
years of playing together and friendship. Not
long after The “new” Kavaliers
called The Freddie Keil Five took a residency in Noumea for 6 months where
they eventually broke up and Brian Smith
[Bass Player] never came back, he still lives there. For me it was a blessing as I was forced to change to bass
and found as much work as I wanted until I retired in the mid 70’s.
These
were exciting lucrative times for all teenagers and being a successful musician
with lots of money was a massive bonus, and I was fortunate to have been there.
It was wine woman and song, except there was no wine, we didn’t drink
at all [Freddie was a Mormon], and we weren’t even aware of drugs.
Yes, we all enjoyed ourselves without artificial stimulants and I’m
sure we had more fun.
If only we could turn the clock in Auckland back to then, ahhhhhh…
The
Newsounds was an
Auckland group that was not widely known and without a couple of excellent
recordings plus having Ray Woolf in
the line-up it would be largely forgotten.
The
group unusually, had no personnel changes from beginning to its end and
comprised of Laurie Simpson Organ, Brian
Biddick Trombone, Rod Gibson Sax,
Ray Woolf Vocals, Al Paget leader and Guitar,
Ian Laird Drums and Billy Belton Bass.
This
group was a follow on from the very popular and successful
Al Paget Sextet with its leader naturally being Al
Paget. This was a great
sounding “formal dance band” that played at the popular dance venues.
Before breaking up they changed their style to be an early rock n roll
band. Al Paget was a perfectionist and his musical input into any group he
played with was “get it perfect, and always get it right.”
The venues they played at consisted of church and public halls, hired by
businessmen, to run dances on a weekly basis.
The music style was designed for people to foxtrot, quick step, and
waltz. A great many marriages
started from these popular dance halls.
Alex
Paget whose real name
was Patchett was a school/music
teacher and a fine guitarist and although his Al
Paget Sextet went through a number of personnel changes it always sounded
great as he seemed to gather good musicians around him.
He was an organised disciplined musician and therefore reliable for
promoters, and as a band leader he was a lovely man to work for.
I
met Al when I went to him for guitar lessons.
I had played rhythm guitar professionally for about 7 years but had never
had either the opportunity or ability to play lead breaks or instrumental solos
[Bands of this era had either lead or rhythm guitarists and the job didn’t
swap], so I went to Al to be “taught” lead.
I found I had very little talent for this, but as the band Freddie
Keil and the Kavaliers that I had played rhythm guitar with for the last
5 years had just booted me out [they were down sizing] I had a problem.
I
sold my Fender Jazzmaster guitar and started to play a ‘62 Fender Precision bass
through a Fender Bassman amp previously
used by Bill Wyman of The
Rolling Stones. I was lucky to
get my first lessons from Billy Kristian,
the master bassist, who was totally available as he was laid up in bed sick. Playing Bass came rather easier than lead guitar and
certainly brought in very steady work for many years to come.
Back
to The Newsounds, Al called me as his current band had apparently disbanded. He
still had plenty of work offers, so he needed a replacement singer, a bass
player, and a drummer. Al had
learned the band where Ian Laird and
I had been playing called the Bob D Five
[my first bass job] had just broken up so he offered both of us a job. I can’t remember if Ray called me or I called Ray but I
jumped at the chance to be in a band with him.
We all went along to a rehearsal that Al had called. I was surprised to see a classmate from Mt Albert Grammar Laurie
Simpson complete with a church type organ [at school I had no idea he was
even a musician], a sax player ex Al
Paget Sextet called Rod Gibson,
and Brian Biddick a classical trombone player from an orchestra were all
in attendance. It was a very
different line-up but under Al’s musical leadership we immediately made an
interesting sound. Laurie’s organ
was an ex-church twin keyboard organ with bass pedals amplified through a Leslie
unit that made it sound like a Hammond organ [Laurie’s father was a Minister
so we never asked where it came from]. When
the organ was combined with the sounds from Al’s guitar, playing lines with
the trombone [an instrument usually associated with Trad Jazz bands] and a tenor
sax we had a very distinct sound. These
horn players were of a very high standard and they could wail. We embarked on more than a year of regular “dances” [the
venues of the day] like Saturday in Mt Eden, Wednesday in Symonds St, and
Thursday in Otahuhu. Plus we did
regular “gigs” at venues called “Prestige Ballrooms” owned by Phil Warren. The work
was enough to allow us to be full time musicians, but this band was made up of
members that all had good full time day jobs.
The work was hard and when travelling and rehearsals were thrown in we
worked very long hours but in return made very good money.
We all indulged in expensive American or European cars as was common for
successful musicians from this period and probably still the same today.
Due to our unique sound and the regular appearances we built up a
dedicated following and the dances were always well supported.
We recorded several singles, and like most NZ music from this era without
any radio airtime they didn’t sell and no one ever heard them. These recordings almost stand up today despite the primitive
recording studios where they were made mainly because of their musical quality
and the distinctive sound of this band. Al
played a Gretch Country Gentleman
guitar clinically perfect with no effect pedals and it had a great but thin
twangy sound. Ray
Woolf as usual was superb and his renditions of “All
Night Worker” and “Over You”
were both horn based gospel/blues numbers. After
about 12 months the gigs closed and the band members moved on.
Laurie went to the Canary Islands and married a Spanish girl, Al moved to
England and I believe Brian still plays in symphony orchestras, Rod continued as
a Hairdresser and I don’t know if he plays, and I have no knowledge of what
happened to Ian Laird. We all lost
touch but luckily through a couple of recordings the sound has been preserved.
After
The Newsounds disbanded Ray and
I started Ray Woolf and the Avengers.
A new band, with a new sound designed to move with the changes happening
in music.
The Newsounds were a disciplined clinical band right at the time where I was learning bass guitar so it was good band to assist this process. The time of 6 or 7 piece bands had now gone as promoters said they were too expensive and popular music didn’t need them. I’m certainly glad I experienced a few before they went like the Dinosaur. Playing with two guitars, an organ, and horns rocked. To be in front of this wall of sound really gave you an unforgettable musical buzz.
The exact date or year I can’t remember but it would be when Andy Shackleton recalls joining as he was the first drummer.
Ray had been a good friend of mine since the days of when he was 16 and a Zodiac recording star, he was being managed by Eldred Stebbing our recording guru.
I met him as I played guitar with Freddie Keil and the Kavaliers, for 5 years. This group backed many other artists either in stage shows or on recordings as well as the tours of the day especially at Christmas. It was an amazing period we played at least 5 nights every week and did dozens of recordings.
Ray had temporarily retired and had settled down somewhere in rural South Auckland to bring up his family where I briefly lost contact with him and when I found him again we decided to put a band together.
We contacted various friends such as Tommy Fergusson a singer with an amazing vocal ability, Tony Blomfield an excellent “Shadows” type guitarist of the day, Bob Pattinson a keyboard player who also had a famous and rare [at the time] Vox organ, plus Andy Shackleton a drummer from Wellington who had come to Auckland to play with the Premiers at the Top Twenty in Durham Lane.
Another guitarist we had playing with us Red McKelvie later to be a huge country player mainly on steel guitar, just left one day without a word to seek his fortune in Australia and an amazing guitarist called Danny Stradwick replaced him. Dan was the “Clapton” of our era and made sounds with his Gibson ES335 guitar that most guitarists could only dream of. He was a natural and stood out from the Fender/tape echo players of the day and could raise the hairs on your neck with an improvised solo.
We were, I guess, another covers band like many of the bands of this time but we were also given unreleased 45 records from overseas to get material from to play and sometimes to record as was the case with “You” and “Crystal Ball” a Loxene gold Disc finalist. These were our most radio played records.
The band went through a huge number of amicable personal changes Tommy left to join the “Brew” after a coin toss with Ray to see who would go, Bob I believed joined Gray Bartlett, and Tony showed he was also a more than competent keyboard/piano player. This was a complete surprise to me at the time, but, a great asset in any band that had him. Sadly, Andy left to return to Wellington and we were joined by a new drummer Norris Nutsford who tragically died of cancer at a far too young an age soon after we disbanded.
As personnel changed so did the sound and style of the band, Ray could sing anything.
The group did a lot of shows because of Ray’s high stature in the NZ music scene, some dances that we organised ourselves in local halls and we also did about 10 recordings on firstly the Zodiac label and then RCA. The music was blues to Beatles and Motown amongst the playlist. I remember one show where all we played was "Dust my Broom", "Gimme a Little Sign", and then Ray came on and we did the whole Sergeant Pepper album exactly from the Beatles LP.
We never had a regular job/residency which was the backbone of work for many longer lasting groups and this probably led ultimately to our demise.
Eventually we did the famous Christmas tour of various sound shells at beach resorts and on returning in January with little work prospects dissolved into several other working bands. Ray of course was always the star and carried on a successful solo career which apart from a few breaks has continued to this day.
This was a moderately successful band but had some absolute top players. Andy was in my opinion the best drummer of this period, Danny had the best blues sound of any guitarist of the time, and Tony both on guitar and piano was an exceptional musician with vast technical skills.
Ray, well he is in my humble opinion the best all-round pop, standards and rock singer NZ has had for 40 years or more. These were great times, we were young, and we were paid well for doing what we loved. Just making music…
Written as best I can recall after about 45 years so it may contain some out of sequence ramblings, but, my memory of the musician’s ability is as clear now as it was then, it was my privilege to have made music with all of them, and I love them dearly.
I was there from the beginning, and almost to the end of about a 5 year residency, and these are my memories, Billy Belton bass player.
The Station Hotel gig was originally being done by The Mike Walker Trio with Ray Woolf adding his great vocals and myself on Bass. The tiny stage was located in a corner of a shabby hotel dining room on the 5th floor of the Station Hotel. The nightly diners were made up of out-of-town travelling salesmen staying overnight in the hotel, off duty police, and the horse racing fraternity out for drinks. Most of these people really only wanted to drink, eat, and talk and a band was an unwanted distraction, even a nuisance.
After about 12 months Mike Walker and Frank Gibson left to do other work leaving Ray and I to put a new band together.
We somehow enticed Vic Williams the ex Kavaliers drummer out of retirement to join us. We auditioned for a piano player [an almost impossible task after Mike Walker] and an incredibly fast playing piano player from Mt Eden turned up called Mike Harvey. This kid sure knew his way around a piano but totally lacked any regular rhythm as he hadn’t played in a band, and came from a music reading, classical background. We sent him home with some Sergio Mendes records and about 2 days later he returned playing perfect time and note perfect copies of the complete Sergio Mendes LP’s. The rest is history Mike Harvey went on to achieve fame as a musician plus he became a leading song writer [Silver Scroll winner], a top session Musician/Arranger and perhaps NZ’s most recorded piano player before he moved to Australia years later.
A promoter Bob Wynyard [not the guitarist] decided to turn the dinning room into a cabaret with guest artists performing floor shows four nights a week. The venue was redecorated; a bigger stage was built with proper stage lights, and a decent sound system was installed. The room was named Tommo’s Place after the hotel’s owner Tom Madgwick. Guests from the hotel plus the people that came in for “dine and dance” evenings filled the room nightly.
It was a popular happening place for Aucklander’s to have an entertaining night out, and it had it’s enthusiastic regulars packing the place night after night.
The new band for Tommos Place band was named Trinity and we played there nightly for the next 5 years, what a fantastic residency to score. During this time we had a number of band singers that included Ray Woolf, Freddie Keil ex Kavaliers, a gangly good looking kid called Bradley Reeves [he’s still singing jazz with Billy Farnell], and Jill later to be Harvey after marrying Mike Harvey. Vic married the dining room manager, and before this we all went out with a number of the waitresses most of whom were on a working holiday from Australia. This band played all types of music and was equally able to cope with requests of “play Ten Guitars” from drunken dinners.
We backed weekly floor shows made up of every top NZ and Australian cabaret performer. They included Howard Morrison, Bridgette Allen, Martin Kini, Tony Williams, Julie Anthony, Ray Columbus, Mr Lee Grant, Rob Guest, Noel MacKay, Bill and Boyd, Hogsnort Rupert, John Hore, John & Frankie Rowles, and Craig Scott, plus many more from Australia. We were sometimes joined for these shows with a guitar player or a brilliant Colin Hemmingsen on tenor Sax, and tin whistle. Four live LP’s were recorded during the floor shows. This was a tough ask for the backing band as you only had one shot to get it right, hence the odd “bum” note that still makes you cringe when listening to these LP’s today.
On a Saturday night at 12.00 Trinity would move it’s gear to a late night scene called The Colony Club. Until we arrived it was a pleasant restaurant with a quiet band. At 1 am it turned into a screaming rock venue and a fresh crowd packed in to join the existing diners. This was a wild place it was noisy and we played loud up beat rock until 4 in the morning, it was a great therapeutic release after quieter diner music all week. There were countless fights, beautiful women everywhere, and it was the place to be seen, get drunk, and have fun. Being in the band didn’t restrict us from joining in all of the above with great gusto.
Mike was the only full time musician in Trinity as he also did recording sessions during the week. Vic and I worked 40 hours or so at our day jobs. This was incredibly tiring and by Sunday we just slept ready to start the week all over again.
After five really enjoyable years, I reluctantly left the band and within a year gave up music, never to play again. I was totally worn out from working over 70 hours a week for more than 10 years straight. My last gig after Trinity was with the very talented Lin Lorkin, [then called Linda Williams] on piano and vocals, John Williams a wild spaced out Scotsman on drums, and Herbie Mann on guitar. We played at a restaurant/club in Albert Street doing semi-Jazz, Latin, and Carol King type numbers. We were sometimes joined on drums by Marc Hunter of Dragon fame.
For me this gig was a bit of a let down after Tommos Place as although the musicians were good to work with, the place was near empty most of the time. By then Trinity were getting so much work it needed to have full time musicians plus the group toured with the Miss New Zealand Show which was owned by the Station Hotels new owner Charles Moeller.
Tommos Place eventually closed and the band moved to a cabaret on the shore called the Ranch House where Trinity reinvented itself as a new band called Salty Dogg. They later moved to a residency at Grandpas Nightclub. This really great sounding rock band will no doubt be talked about later by one of its members consisting of Vic Williams Drums, Mike Harvey Keyboards, Graham Chapman [now deceased] doing Vocals, and Martin Winch on Guitar.
<Home> <Bands> <Musicians> <Venues & Places> <Reunions> <Contacts List> <Anthems> <Search>