Whanganui’s Loveridge brothers bring father’s 75-year-old song back to life

Murray (left) and Fred Loveridge kept it in the family for their re-recording of Southern Paradise. Photo / Mike Tweed

A 75-year-old song soaked in Kiwiana has finally seen the light of day, thanks to Whanganui musicians Fred and Murray Loveridge.

Fred Loveridge said his father, Walter Loveridge, recorded Southern Paradise in 1950 for the Tanza label in Wellington.

Tanza (To Assist NZ Artists) released the country’s first homegrown pop hit, Blue Smoke, a year earlier.

“It was a chance for Dad to leave Whanganui and go and record a couple of original songs,” Fred Loveridge said.

“He pulled in my mum’s brothers to play trumpet and piano.”

The recording was a success but the song was never released.

Tanza wanted “someone with more of a profile” to sing it but his father would not budge, Fred Loveridge said.

“It might have been a bit silly of him but the whole industry and business were in their infancy back then.

“If they had approached me and said ‘Look, we like the song but you suck and we’ve got someone with a name to sing’, I’d have thought that was great.”

Murray Loveridge said Tanza gave Walter an acetate record with his songs on it which the brothers “thrashed to death” at home.

“We just loved it. We thought it was marvellous.”

It is one of 12 songs released on Loveridge, the pair’s first full album.

Their sister, Sanchia Loveridge-Hawley, sang Southern Paradise for the record.

Murray Loveridge (second from left) and Fred Loveridge (right) on stage with The Blues Buffet.

“Lyrically, the song is really about coming and checking out our country,” Fred Loveridge said.

“Back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was a real push to get punters over here, from Australia, Japan, America, everywhere.

“We used certain instrumentation to keep that Kiwiana sound, right down to the scratching sounds of a record at the start of the song.”

Murray Loveridge said his father, who died in 1976, loved music all his life, although he was never part of a band.

“I started buying Beatles albums and Mum and Dad were horrified when they saw what they looked like, with the long hair and everything.

“As time went by and the Rolling Stones came out, they suddenly thought The Beatles were the bees’ knees.

“Then The Kinks and The Who came along and they started liking all of it. It just took a while, that’s all.”

The brothers, stalwarts of the Whanganui music scene, play together in The Blues Buffet and Freddie Flash and the Firebirds.

Fred, a music teacher at Whanganui High School, is also a member of Whisky Mama, Workshop and the Whanganui Jazz Orchestra.

He said there were no plans to perform the Loveridge album with a band but “never say never”.

“We’d have to set aside a lot of time to cover it all - a couple of keyboard players, a couple of guitar players, singers.

“Who knows, it could be like a travelling circus.”

The Loveridge album can be streamed online and physical copies are available at Gatshack and Vinyl Room.

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.