Posa coming in out of the cold

By THERESA GARNER

Peter Posa was the guitar hero of the 1960s, pioneering a multiple guitar style in which he overdubbed the tracks himself.

He had a string of instrumental hits and American producers knocking on the door. But the chance at worldwide fame was lost when Posa returned homesick from the United States and was involved in two car accidents, which left him battling chronic pain and depression.

Now 61, Posa's music has lived on through album sales and this week he was awarded a gold disc by BMG New Zealand for the greatest hits CD The Best of Peter Posa.

The CD, his first album that was not released on vinyl, came out in 1998 and has sold 7500 copies in New Zealand. It promises "foot-tapping stuff bound to brighten up a gloomy day".

The sales figure is eclipsed by sales elsewhere in the world of his 20 records, which remain the largest body of music by a New Zealander. He has sold more than a million records in Japan.

As a child growing up in the Henderson Valley, Posa spent his spare time making toy guitars. He would steal his mother's clothes lines for the strings.

The teenage Posa led the Peter Posa Combo, which played for dances and functions in West Auckland.

"When I started off I was very shy. I wasn't the greatest fan of the TV, either. I just liked doing my concerts," Posa said.

His version of White Rabbit remains the biggest selling instrumental record by a New Zealand artist, reaching number 1 in both New Zealand and Australia in 1963.

Others to reach the hit parade were Guitar Boogie, Gonk, Wheels, The Mad Hatter and Grasshopper.

In 1964 a sellout concert in the Auckland Town Hall farewelled Posa to the US. Herald files from the time note that the audience, well practised after the Beatles' tour, screamed at every opportunity.

Posa met Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and did gigs in Los Angeles. But he was to return after just six months.

"I wish I'd stayed in America longer. I had so many offers, but I turned them down. I was only 24, and I was a bit young to be that many miles away."

He confined his tours after that to the South Pacific. At one point, one in 10 people in Noumea owned a copy of his single French Caledonian Blue. He was mobbed by enthusiastic crowds in Fiji, where he was made an honorary chief.

On the concert trail around New Zealand he appeared with Helen Shapiro, Roger Whittaker, Gene Pitney, Hank Snow and Demis Roussos.

But Posa has slipped into virtual anonymity, last performing on the television show That's Country in 1984.

Pain has racked his life since he hurt his neck in the 1970s. He developed a drinking problem and was smoking 80 cigarettes a day. But he has now given up both and is back to practising the guitar five hours a day. His fingers still itch to play and he has not ruled out performing live again.

Known in the industry for being stage-shy yet technically perfect, his confidence has grown with age and "I am now playing better than I ever have".

The gold disc is not his first. He received one in 1977 for composing and producing Toni William's single Rose, Can I Share a Bed With You?