It began life as a small dinner celebration with the results broadcast over radio, and grew to be one of our biggest events in popular culture. And few who were at the first New Zealand Music Awards 50 years ago could have envisioned what that inaugural event would become.
The low-key ceremony on November 25, 1965 was described as ‘a special dinner’ by the New Zealand Listener at the time. The event was centred on one major prize – The Loxene Golden Disc – which was given to the performer of New Zealand’s most popular song that year. A second prize was awarded to the winner’s record company, and a Silver Scroll award was presented for the best original composition.
The major prizewinner was decided by public vote from 10 finalists, who had been picked by a panel of five judges. The public – 33,000 of them – voted by cutting out and sending in an entry form published in the Listener.
The top award went to rock and roll sensations Ray Columbus and the Invaders for their song Till We Kissed. Zodiac Records’ Aldred Stebbing was rewarded for recording the winning song and the Silver Scroll went to Wayne Healy for his song Teardrops.
This month the Awards – now known as the Vodafone Music Awards – will celebrate their half-century anniversary. In those 50 years the event has grown to become a televised spectacular with 6000 people in attendance, hundreds of entrants, 30 award categories and winners decided by a panel of 230 judges.
In 2008 the ceremony was moved from Auckland’s Aotea Centre to the city’s Vector Arena, and began selling tickets to the public – widening its scope to include fans. It’s clear the Awards have developed exponentially as the music industry has matured.
Mark Roach, licensing and marketing manager of Recorded Music New Zealand, the organisation responsible for the Awards, says the music industry in 1965 was a very different beast to the one we know today.
“There wasn’t a lot going on,” he says. “I don’t even think you could call it an industry then.”
The five judges of the 1965 Golden Disc Awards.
Radio and television was still under the control of the conservative Broadcasting Corporation. “They weren’t playing a lot of local music and they certainly didn’t like playing rock and roll, so it was quite hard work for bands,” Mark explains.
And he says there was little original content being recorded – instead, local artists were covering already successful American, British or Australian compositions. “It was costly and would take a long time to import music into the country, so it was quicker to get the sheet music and get a band here to record it.”
The artists of the time toured relentlessly to get their music heard. “It wasn’t uncommon for bands to be playing two or three times a day,” says Mark. “That was the social media of the day.” This is in stark contrast to 2015, when music can be shared via social media, played on dedicated TV channels or on one of 80 radio stations, which play about 18 per cent local content.
The Loxene Golden Disc Awards ran from 1965-72, organised by The New Zealand Broadcasting Association and Reckitt and Colman – who owned Loxene shampoo and had naming rights sponsorship, as Vodafone does today.
“Reckitt and Colman saw it as an opportunity to get into the youth market, so in that sense not a lot has changed,” says Mark. “Music is a great way to appeal to a young demographic. But when I look at the history, I can see the early Awards shows were quite hokey, low-budget affairs. There wasn’t much interest in an awards night. It was very insular and inward looking.”
In 1972 the Loxene Golden Disc Awards became the Rata Awards (and there have been numerous name changes since), expanding to cover 11 categories, and the Silver Scrolls became a separate autonomous entity. Mark says these changes saw the enterprise become “something that looks more like the modern-day Music Awards”.
In the 1980s demand grew for the Awards to expand further. “That was the era of The Mockers, DD Smash and Dance Exponents,” says Mark. “They were really making inroads, had a lot of radio hits and couldn’t be ignored any more. I think that may have been a turning point, when the public wanted something bigger.”
But he says the most significant growth has happened in the past 15 years. “I think the Awards have crystallised the music industry. It is a great snapshot of the rude health the industry is in at the moment and a great marker of those artists who have done something overseas – from Crowded House right through to Lorde.
“The level of professionalism has changed,” Mark continues. “We’ve gone from a DIY garden shed approach to something that holds its own next to any music awards in the world.”
A page from the New Zealand Listener encouraging readers to vote for their favourite musicians.
Billy Kristian was the bass player for Ray Columbus and the Invaders. The 72-year-old has that first Golden Disc hanging on the wall of his home studio in Northland. Ray gave it to him when the band was inducted into the New Zealand Hall of Fame in 2013. “I was the only surviving member living in New Zealand, and Ray thought it should stay here,” says Billy.
Locating the record was a jackpot for Mark, who’s been trawling archives in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary.
“There is not a lot of archival material from the 1965-75 period that survived, so we are reaching out to Facebook groups like 1960s music groups [for information] – we have been clutching at straws a bit!”
Billy remembers little about the first Awards, but does recall the feeling of exhilaration during that heady time, when the band’s number one hit She’s A Mod made them a household name. The band became immensely popular and toured with the likes of The Rolling Stones and Roy Orbison. “It was the time of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and the excitement was in getting out there, playing rock and roll, trying to sell a record and be as big as those other bands. Ray Columbus and the Invaders were lucky – we did well at that.”
But he says the band had to move to Australia to top the charts. “We worked hard. We’d ring up disc jockeys and say, ‘We would like to take you out and buy you a few beers.’ We’d become friends, then they’d play our records.”
Billy’s memories of the time are littered with famous bands and a lot of noise. “The girls were crazy, they used to camp outside the hotels on the grass verges and scream all night. Roy Orbison thought we were the loudest band in the world,” he adds. “We thought that was fantastic – louder than the Stones!”
The Invaders disbanded in 1967, when Ray went to America (the rest of the band couldn’t get visas). Billy joined Max Merritt and the Meteors and then went on to have a successful career as an international session musician.
He will be at the Awards this month. “I go most years to keep my finger in the pie, and it is always good to catch up with the older musicians. The Awards have grown bigger and bigger and of course now it is huge. “It has changed now because we’ve got musicians who have hit the world stage and put us on the map. People used to think we were part of Australia!”
Words by Nicola Russell
Photos by Newspixnz; recorded music NZ
