Songwriter Murray to play tonight
For years we were really digging this CD - that’s right, a compact disc - with no idea that the man singing and playing guitar lived just down the road.
“Yeah, nah, it’s Dean Murray. He lives at Manakau,” a mate enlightened us all one day.
And so it was that Manakau singer and songwriter Dean Murray became a mythical figure. The tunes we were whistling to were made by a musician we wouldn’t recognise if we passed in the street, but it was cool to think he was a local.
That was almost 20 years ago, when Murray released his very first album, Yeah Nah. The curtain was finally pulled back this week with a chance to meet him ahead of a gig at Levin Folk Music Club tonight.
Barefoot, with a handshake and a smile, he was happy to give a tour of a home he built himself from scratch out of rammed earth. It started to make sense why his music sounded so grounded.
The ceilings were timber lined. Handmade river rock walls lined the sheds and the garden. The toilets were composting. The electricity renewable. He once had his Toyota van running on used vegetable oil.
There were half a dozen lambs on the small farmlet, a huge kunekune pig that will never see the oven, fruit trees, lots of vegetables, and a giant statue of a moa. Out the back, Murray had replanted a low-lying area that was once swamp with native plant species in an attempt to bring it back to a natural wetland. The flaxes and trees were growing. The birds were returning. It brimmed with life. Nearby an outdoor entertainment area banked with grassy knolls provided the perfect arena for live music.
A prolific songwriter of more than 150 songs, it was easy to see why many of them touched on environmental and political themes, songs like Gas is Gone, The Fishing Song, Blink of an Eye and Money God.
Murray’s musical journey started with classical piano lessons as a child. He didn’t buy his first guitar until his early 20s. He was shown two chords, E and Am, and from there was selftaught.
A reluctant learner at the time, he was grateful for that early piano background as that basic music knowledge could be transferred to other instruments, even if he was playing by ear.
He kept playing guitar while working at the freezing works for more than a decade. It was during a union strike that he teamed up with good friend Tura Rata and began busking, playing a blend of country, folk, blues and reggae.
Initially called Road Works, they were joined by Brent Gemmell to form Gravel Slappers and busked and gigged all over the North Island.
Murray then recorded Yeah Nah along with various musician friends at a studio called Muddy Boots in the Akatawara Ranges.
He later joined Henpicked with Carylann Martin (keyboards and accordion), Kirsten London (bass) and Anje Glindemann (drums), playing regularly for more than seven years and releasing three albums.
Raising a family and work had always taken precedence. Murray had worked as a school caretaker for a total of 26 years. With a big dent in the mortgage he retired recently, giving him a chance to renew his passion for playing and writing music.
Murray recently joined a music club in Paraparaumu teaming up again with Martin after more than a decade to work on new music and try new instruments like bass guitar, playing an electric bass he had built himself.
Murray will be joined tonight by Colin and Sue Brown, and A Choired Taste. Doors at the Horowhenua Scottish Hall on Bartholomew Road open at 7pm. Anyone can put their name up on a blackboard and perform before the main event at 7.30pm.
Admission is $7 and $3 for students. Cash only (no Eftpos facilities).