Songwriter taking a Gamble on the past

Street Talk disbanded in 1980 but got together again briefly in 1994.

Hammond Gamble is having a beer to calm his nerves. Usually he wakes in the morning and plays the blues, but today he has been bidding on the internet for a piece of musical equipment.

It's obviously high-pressure stuff for the local blues man, but at least he's holding the top bid.

"Do you want a beer?" he smiles.

It's 2pm on a Friday so it'd be rude not to.

"It's only one of these," he says, snapping open a VB stubbie.

"They're my favourite. No, not really. They're the cheapest," he says, smirking.

Gamble, who is in his mid 50s, does a lot of grinning and laughs like an excitable child. He is a waffler, heading off on all sorts of tangents during a chat about his new acoustic album, Recollection.

He may have been performing live since 1974 with his first band Street Talk, but Gamble is nervous. As he says at the end of the interview: "I hope that was okay. I'm long-winded and a mouther 'cause I get nervous and I say lots of daft stuff."

The acoustic album, which is part of the Blue Acoustic Series put out by Australian record label Liberation, is made up of 12 Gamble tracks taking in his entire career, including Street Talk's Leaving the Country and Poison, through to the beautiful Midnight and Daylight Robbery.

The Liberation series also includes releases by other New Zealand artists such as Jenny Morris, Jon Stevens, and Dragon [see below].

In New Zealand, the company is run by Brent Eccles, who also drummed in Street Talk for a time.

He asked Gamble if he wanted to do an acoustic album and the bluesman jumped to it. And it might just be the best album Gamble has made - not that you'll get any reaction from him.

"At my age I just thought it was a great opportunity. You know, mid 50s, getting a chance to do all that again," he says humbly.

He reckons it's great to play a song like Poison again because he hasn't performed it since his Street Talk days.

"I made a point, out of deference to the other guys I suppose, of not climbing on their back. So I determined when I went out as the Hammond Gamble Band [in 1980] that I wouldn't do Street Talk stuff. We never did that song, but I've always liked it," he reflects.

Gamble's love of the blues, and music in general, started in his teens when he moved with his family from Britain to settle in Whangarei during the early 60s.

It was then he was taught to play rock'n'roll songs by a Maori family from a small place called Tauraroa, just south of Whangarei.

"There was Bill, and Joe, and Pat and Bernadette. Christ, the whole family could play and they're probably still playing this weekend for all I know," he laughs.

"We went and did talent quests at Kawakawa, and that really, really got me into it."

The more bluesy influence came to him in the late 60s when everyone was getting into "this freaky, blues, hair-do music".

"It just struck a chord with me, I don't know why. Maybe it was because there were so many immigrant people coming to New Zealand, and I suppose you feel a little like an outsider."

Back then he took on the blues lifestyle - avidly collecting guitars and playing every opportunity he got, even during lunch breaks from his job as a shipping clerk.

"Nowadays, I don't care as much. I've got a few guitars but I don't polish them like crazy, although I've just got a new one and I've been making sure I don't bang it up too much."

When he shifted to Auckland in 1974 to play music, he moved into a flat in Ardmore Rd, Herne Bay, where he met his wife, Susan. And yes, they're still happily married.

The first Street Talk gig was at the Pukekohe Hotel on August 1974 and it wasn't long before the band were playing regularly at the Windsor Castle in Parnell, and later at Ponsonby venue, the Gluepot.

After a few semi-break ups, Street Talk disbanded in 1980, playing their final gigs in September.

Soon after, he started the Hammond Gamble Band and released a number of albums.

Although Gamble has been a constant on the live scene since, and has had many great songs and a few shots at fame overseas, he has never made it big.

Not that it worries him. Of an ill-fated trip to the United States to break the big time he says: "There's no point mentioning that. Things that don't work - what's the point? Things are what they are and some people get famous for doing [expletive]-all really."

Gamble is happy to have made a living out of music and has no qualms about doing advertising jingles - be it writing or singing them - to make extra money on top of touring.

"It's not all that easy, because I have to go away quite a lot. When the kids were little, we used to go away together, but in recent years I go away on tours just to make money. You haven't got a hanky have ya?" he asks, cracking up.

"People say, 'For Christ's sake you should stop doing jingles', but making money out of music in New Zealand isn't an easy option and you've got to draw a pretty wide net. It takes a bit of doing and it's not the sort of business to be in if you think, 'Oh, [expletive] that, I'm not singing about icecream'."

So Gamble - who lives in a modest Northcote house on Auckland's North Shore, at the end of a long cul-de-sac - is very comfortable, thank you very much.

But he confesses there "wasn't a hell of a lot of money to spend" on Recollection. "But I've never spent a lot of money on making records. I can't see the point, really. We just go in and do it."

Recollection sounds good. The album was produced by Rikki Morris and also reunites Gamble with former Street Talk guitarist Mike Caen.

"To be honest with ya, I'm a blues guitarist, you see. So on Recollection I do all the little licks but all the background guitar work was mostly done by Mike - because he's far better at it."

And the secret to a great song?

"You have to hit the spot with the listener," he says. "Like Yesterday, or [he starts singing] 'Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?' sounds like somebody appealing to somebody to stop being a bastard."

LOWDOWN

WHO: Hammond Gamble
WHAT: Original Kiwi bluesman
NEW ALBUM: Recollection, out June 26
PAST BANDS: Street Talk; The Hammond Gamble Band
PAST ALBUMS: As Street Talk, Street Talk (1979); Battleground of Fun (1980); As Hammond Gamble, Hammond Gamble (1981); Every Whisper Shouts (1983); Plugged In and Blue (1995)

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE

Todd Hunter, the founder and bass player of Dragon, was reluctant to record new versions of his band's songs for the Blue Acoustic Series.

You can't blame him really. It had been years since Dragon - a band known just as well for their excess as hits like April Sun In Cuba - had played together. Plus, his brother, Marc, the band's lead singer, died in 1998.

But a year ago, while playing bass in a concert at his son's school, he was inspired.

"It really brought it home to me [that], 'This is what you do, you big idiot!'," says Hunter, who got together a band to record songs like Are You Old Enough? and Dreams Of Ordinary Men for the album, Sunshine To Rain.

Replacing Marc Hunter on vocals is veteran Kiwi singer Mark Williams.

Other New Zealanders involved in the series are ex-pat Jenny Morris and former Noiseworks and INXS frontman, Jon Stevens.

Morris, from 80s band the Crocodiles who later went solo, performs hits like She Has To Be Loved, Body and Soul and You I Know (a song written by Neil Finn). Sadly though there's no sign of the Crocodiles' classic Tears.

There's also releases from classic Aussie acts like Mental As Anything, the Choirboys (remember Run To Paradise?), Mark Seymour from Hunters and Collectors, and the Church.

And finally, get your lighters out because former Aussie Crawl frontman, James Reyne, breaks out a version of Reckless.