Dean Murray will play at Levin Folk Music Club this Friday night.
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 in the workshop 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 this Friday night.
Barefoot, with a handshake and a smile, he was happy to give a tour of his home, which 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 second-hand 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 hooked up to a speaker that made an educated guess at a deep moa cry every time you walked past it.
“There was moa here,” he said.
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 to date, 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 taught himself to play.
While somewhat of a reluctant learner at the time he was grateful for that early piano background as some of that basic music knowledge could be transferred to other instruments, even if he was playing by ear.
“Over the years I realised how much my ear was tuned by classical piano,” he said.
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 drummer Brent Gemmell to form Gravel Slappers and busked and gigged all over the North Island.
Murray then recorded that Yeah Nah album along with various musician friends at a studio called Muddy Boots in the Akatawara Ranges.
On the album he sang, and played acoustic guitar and harmonical musicians included Earl Pollard on drums, Ross McDermott (bass), Jan Campbell (drums, bass, keyboard), Moira Howard (bass, backing vocals), Aaron Andis (electric guitars), Colleen Trenwith (strings), Carylann Martin (piano), Bullfrog Rata, and Andrew London (banjos).
He would later join a band called 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.
Murray said it was brilliant playing in a band with women as opposed to “beer with the boys” and it had opened new doors. What they wore became part of the fun - dressing as vampires, hippies - whatever the mood suggested.
Raising a family and work had always taken precedence. Murray had worked as a school caretaker with stints at Levin North and Manakau Schools for a total of 26 years. With a big dent in the mortgage he had retired recently, which gave him a chance to renew his passion for playing and writing music.
Murray recently joined a music club in Paraparaumu and teamed up again with Martin after more than a decade to work on some new music and try new instruments like bass guitar, playing an electric bass he had built himself.
He was a self-confessed shed man and could spend hours welding, grinding, nailing and drilling. The shed is next to the music room that housed various instruments including guitars that he made himself - amps too.
It was through a guitar-making course that he played instruments he had made himself. Since then he had planted some Tasmanian hardwood trees out the back - perfect for making more guitars - even though he might be long gone by the time they mature.
He will be joined this Friday night at Levin Folk Music Club by Colin and Sue Brown, and A Choired Taste. The doors will open at 7pm and the evening begins at 7.30 pm when there is an opportunity for anyone to put their name up on a blackboard for an item before the main performers take the stage.
The Browns been performing as a duo for a few years around Levin and sing everything from country to folk to jazz, often adding a couple of originals into the mix. Colin plays guitar and they both sing.
A Choired Taste is a new a capella choir for Horowhenua, formed this year. There were no auditions or reading music and choir members had learned by ear and lots of practice, meeting each week at Levin War Memorial Hall.
Its repertoire includes pop, folk, gospel and waiata. To date they have sung at May Music Month, retirement villages, and more recently at Spring Sing in Ōtaki with other choirs.
WHO: Dean Murray, Colin and Sue Brown. A Choired Taste.
WHERE: Horowhenua Scottish Society Hall, 155 Bartholomew Rd, corner Bartholomew Rd and Middlesex St, Levin
WHEN: October 13, 7pm.
HOW MUCH: Admission is $7 and $3 for students. Cash only (no Eftpos facilities).
- Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air.
