Obituary: Dave Jordan

The songwriter Dave Jordan has died of pneumonia at Christchurch Hospital, aged 61.

By DAVID CALDER

Songwriter. Died aged 61.

The songwriter Dave Jordan has died of pneumonia at Christchurch Hospital, aged 61.

He was twice winner of the Australasian Performing Right Association Silver Scroll award, and worked with songwriters and musicians in New Zealand, Europe and America.

More legendary than famous, Jordan cut his teeth composing satirical ballads for Massey University's Capping Revue before writing and performing in the folk boom of the 1960s.

Pete Seeger and Nina and Frederick performed his songs, and his debut album, Seasons, was released on the Kiwi label in 1968.

Two of its songs won New Zealand's top song-writing award in successive years.

The gentle number I Shall Take My Leave beat its pop rivals in 1968, and in 1969 he won the Silver Scroll again with Out of Sight, Out of Mind, performed by The Avengers.

He was an extraordinary lyricist, as capable of poetry as Paul Simon or Bob Dylan.

Jordan's student job at a freezing works yielded the hilarious Gut-board Blues, but his satire was without malice.

His affectionate take on an aunt's frugality, Never Throw Away Anything, had a chorus which rang in the rafters of New Zealand folk clubs.

In London, as an in-house writer-producer at Chapple Music, he penned songs in multiple genres, recorded by Roger Whittaker, Sasha Distel and Demis Roussos. A second album, Away From Home, included the London Symphony Orchestra.

Returning to New Zealand in the 80s to write jingles, Jordan became disabled by multiple sclerosis.

In Out Of Sight, he wrote:

"As the years hurry by

You will find my face has vanished in the night."

Perhaps so, e hoa, but not your music.

Dave Jordan is survived by his estranged wife Gisela and their son, Fred.