Ray Woolf swings through the sixties
Ray Woolf is ‘‘walking back to happiness’’.
It’s amemory he has of Palmerston North when he first visited nearly 60 years ago. At 16, Woolf was already singing with the best of Brits and, one of them, was the UK’S top female singer.
Helen Shapiro, at 14, had topped the British charts with You Don’t Know, Don’t Treat Me Like A Child and, wait for it, Walking Back to Happiness.
It was a song that describedwoolf’s association with Palmerston North. Shapiro’s career moved from pop, to cabaret, to musical theatre, to jazz and eventually Christian music, while Woolf set out to conquer the New Zealand pop and jazz scene and our city played an important role.
On Saturday he’s back in Palmerston North, teaming up with the Rodger Fox Big
Band and vocalist Erna Ferry to present Hits From the Brits. It’s the sound of Britain’s swinging sixties made immortal by The Who, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Hollies and many others.
Woolf doesn’t just interpret the music, he lives the songs. He’s an East End Brit who started singing in pubs when he was 13. He recalls crooning with Emile Ford, whose What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At
Me For inspired teenage one-liners in New Zealand.
Woolf then came to New Zealand in 1962 and established an enduring career that embraced TV shows C’mon, Happen Inn, the Loxene Gold Disk Awards and, of course, the Ray Woolf Show. But Woolf was shrewd not to ‘‘cobweb’’ his pop stardom. He extended his repertoire into jazz and classics, and toured New Zealand.
He was a regular at Charlie Walding’s Southern Cross, somewhere above Hello Banana, he sang in early and late jazz festivals, toured with Sir Howard Morrison, established a lasting connection with Rodger Fox and cornered cameo roles in TV drama and movies.
‘‘My wife Chrissy and I are very fond of Palmerston North.
‘‘It holds great memories. We even planted a tree here,’’ Woolf said. His 74-yearold roots are back in the city this Saturday night.
‘‘These British songs are where it all started forme and it will be great to sing them all again.’’
Hits From the Brits performs at the Regent on Broadway this Saturday, at 7.30pm.