If you’re interested in broadening your musical horizons, which is one of the the things we’re all interested in here (well, when we’re not wallowing in our nostalgic meanderings into the past) – then check out the link below. It’s an excellent and well researched piece about South Pacific music, on the always excellent Audio Culture website.
Growing up in NZ Polynesian music was all about Maori songs like Pokarekareana and Hoki Mai, and Howard Morrison doing his hokey act (all together now “I want to live in a Maori car, I want to live in a Maori car…”). In this clip he’s the handsome guy with the girl checking out the wonderful Maori Quin Tikis.
Lovely stuff, @mousey, thanks. One of the things I still have trouble getting my head round in Oz is the proximity to the Pacific islands, relatively speaking. The fact that the closest island is a French dependency just adds to the weirdness. I’ve occasionally toyed with the idea of taking myself off to one of them, but the fact that it’s generally cheaper – and quicker – to fly to London puts me off.
It’s quite hard to find authentic island music, it turns out. Most of it (on YT anyway) seems to come from the island of Hawaii by way of the island of Jamaica or vice versa, once you’ve fought your way through multiple posts of Bali Ha’i.
I have always liked this one from Nesian Mystik. Auckland-based but from the Islands.
Thanks a lot, Mousey. A new musical journey awaits.
That clip is from the 1966 Kiwi Feature Film “Don’t Let It Get You” ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_0b2TYGC2Q
An all star cast including a young Kiri Te Kanawa.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211335/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
The Kiwis being vey smart and jumping on Cliff’s Summer Holiday bandwagon.
Look, someone had to do it.
Have an ‘up’ – you beat me to it!
When I was but a youngster, this song was a #1 hit in Australia. It sounded like something from an exotic South Sea island – the sort of thing you might hear via a fuzzy Radio Australia signal, conjuring images of sun, sea and a tropical life that seemed impossibly unachievable.
It came as a slightly disappointing surprise years later to find it was the work of a producer working in Nashville.
Ah yes, the Raunchy Hitmaker…I was surprised to see him crop up on the article that Mousey linked to.
Just remembered another another release that got a lot of airplay in the office 25 years ago. “Siva Pacifica” was a project put together by English-born Australian producer Anthony Copping.
As Wikipedia puts it, “In the late 1980s, Copping travelled to Fiji for a holiday and on a ferry trip to an outer island, Copping encountered a Fijian rugby team. “They had a guitar and started singing these songs and I couldn’t believe how these massive, strapping, guys sang lullabies and produced these beautiful harmonies.”. He returned to Suva, looking for Fijian-made records and found none. He searched Sydney and realised that there was simply no South Pacific music available. “It was apparently an area of non-interest as far as music was concerned and that was my first twinkling of Siva.”…over the next four years, Copping travelled and saved a collection of recordings and in 1997, the first Siva Pacifica album was released, selling over 100 000 copies.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlafRrdwAMM
I take it this wasn’t quite what Mousey had in mind…
Or this, hit though it was…
I finally got round to reading the excellent article you recommended.
I like his mention of Beleza Tropical. Maybe, one day we’ll get a South Pacific counterpart!
Here is one of the recommendations: Bound to get any party started