| |
Dinah
Lee
In The Sixties Dinah Lee was the most successful female singer of
in both her New Zealand homeland and Australia. While female pop
singers of the day (Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, etc) made it
on the strength of non-images and romantic ballads which musically
had almost nothing to do with the male ‘beat’ groups of the day,
on stage and on record Dinah had all the adventure and exuberance
for the time the boys had.
Born Diane Jacobs, at the age of fifteen she began appearing at
her father's nightclub in Christchurch. She was also modelling by
the time she went to Auckland. Performing at a variety of clubs
and coffee lounges, she crossed paths with two of the hottest bands
in town, Max Merritt and the Meteors, and Ray Columbus and The Invaders.
Her big break came when the mother of Max Merritt's main singer
died and Dinah was asked to fill in for a tour.
Signed to influential local label Viking Records, Dinah entered
the recording studios with Max and the Meteors to record her own
versions of two soul/r&b songs she had heard on a Dee Dee Sharp
record – Huey ‘Piano’ Smith’s ‘Don’t You Know Yokomo’ and Jackie
Wilson’s ‘Reet Petite’. Both songs became New Zealand number ones
and Dinah became a pop sensation, heads above the other female singers
of the day – Maria Dallas, Sandy Edmonds and Allison Durbin. She
followed up with a third big hit, a Jamaican ska song ‘Do The Blue
Beat’.
Australia’s king of rock Johnny O’Keefe recognized that there was
nothing like Dinah in Australia either and invited her to appear
on his ‘Sing Sing Sing’ show. Performances on the rest of Australia’s
pop TV shows followed. At the same time as Ray Columbus and The
Invaders became the first New Zealanders to score a Number One record
in Australia Dinah was top ten with ‘Don’t You Know Yokomo’.
The Invaders’ hit ‘She’s A Mod’ could easily have been about Dinah
Lee herself. The fashion sense she brought into her pop career from
her modelling days, made Dinah queen of the mods, Australia’s most
imitated female. Her next big hit was ‘Reet Petite’, backed by ‘Do
The Blue Beat’.
Dinah now divided her time between both sides of the Tasman. In
New Zealand she starred in two half-hour TV specials and had another
hit with ‘Who Stole The Sugar’.
In 1965 she moved on to London,
to record with Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records and champion
of Jamaican music (Little Millie, Bob Marley), and appeared on shows
like ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’ and ‘Scene At 6.30’. Dinah was also
the only Australasian to appear on America’s ‘Shindig’ show. On
one of her two appearances she joined Ray Charles, The Righteous
Brothers and an unknown singer called Glenn Campbell for a rendition
of Ray’s ‘Hit The Road Jack’.
Dinah Lee spent the rest of the Sixties consolidating a lucrative
nightclub career. Based in Sydney, she still performs today. .
|
|
