Strike a pose: Peter Posa, centre left, with Dean Martin, centre right, in Las Vegas.
One of the most gifted players of his generation, Peter Posa found fame thanks to one magical tune.
Peter Posa, who died on February 3, aged 77, was one of our most successful, if unlikely, entertainers of the volatile, increasingly hirsute 60s. Against emerging and vibrant Kiwi pop and rock of that decade, Posa was an anomaly.
He didn’t sing, often performed sitting down, was clean-cut and eschewed the changing fashions of that period for conservative, smart-casual attire.
Guitarist Peter Posa – born in West Auckland – was a man out of time.
But he was a remarkably adept performer whose repertoire covered pop, Spanish music, gospel, jazz, Māori and
His mega-selling The White Rabbit was an exceptional one-take, two-minute tune in which his guitar sound shimmered and glistened.
Pacific tunes, Scottish and Irish songs and, of course, the pop-country crossover hit that gave him a foothold: his mega-selling The White Rabbit, an exceptional onetake, two-minute tune in which his guitar sound shimmered and glistened. It made his name and the subsequent White Rabbit album sold about 200,000 copies.
“I must have played the damn thing 10,000 times,” he laughed in 2012, when the compilation White Rabbit:
The Very Best of Peter Posa was the biggest-selling local album that year. Released in 1963, the hit brought him television appearances and national tours with international and local stars.
It was also his passport. He played in Japan and Australia, and after an album featuring that hit was released in America (earning a B+ notice in Billboard magazine), he went over in mid-1964.
He appeared on television (once playing with jazz guitarist Herb Ellis), and at the famous Shelly’s Manne-Hole Jazz Club in Los Angeles, where he sat in with drummer Shelly Manne, bassist Ray Brown (Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson sideman) and guitar legend Barney Kessel.
Such was his versatility that he could play with just about anyone, and while in the US, he met Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra (“[he] was genuinely interested in my career”), Dean Martin and studio musicians in New York, Nashville and Los Angeles.
But the tiny Vee-Jay Records label couldn’t get traction for his album (it was similarly unsuccessful with early Beatles), his visa expired just as session work came up, and he was homesick.
He returned to a gruelling touring and recording regime (20 musically diverse albums in eight years) and, by his own admission, was increasingly beset by a lack of confidence, depression and alcoholism.
A car crash in 1970 brought his career to a halt: “I was very depressed that night. It wasn’t a suicide attempt, but … I’d just been overworked, 10 years continuous.”
Subsequent live appearances were intermittent, there was some session and production work, and other recordings. He withdrew, and towards the end of his life – he’d found Christianity and his supportive wife, Margaret, in the early 90s – was living quietly near Te Awamutu after a stroke and bouts of ongoing depression.
A modest, honest man, Posa – made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2008 – was one of the most accomplished guitarists of his generation. Even today, the first few distinctive bars of The White Rabbit are catchy and joyous. “It’s one of those magic tunes,” he said, “that comes along once in a lifetime.”