2012 marks the 50th anniversary of a skinny quiffed 17 year old by the name of Ray Woolf on his first night out in his new home town of Auckland after emigrating here from Daggenham, Essex with his parents.
Fifteen minutes after entering the Oriental Ballroom to check out The Keil Isles, a cocky Ray asked if he could sing a few songs with the band. After two songs, the club owner offered him regular work, and Eldred Stebbing, who was there that night, offered him a recording contract with his Zodiac label. Two weeks later Ray found himself opening for Helen Shapiro on her 1962 tour of New Zealand.
Ray Woolf The Sixties Collection concentrates on the quiff and paisley periods and delves deep into his sixties catalogue which encompassed 17 singles. Criminally only 3 of these tracks have ever been re-issued in any format.
This new collection puts paid to that oversight with a vengeance, and includes all of his sixties singles and most of the B-sides, which see Ray effortlessly gliding from Rock ‘n’ Roll to pop, and from R ‘n’ B and soul to avant-garde psych rock as exemplified on The Brew’s standout 1967 single “Bengal Tiger” with Bob Gillett.
Three unreleased tracks are featured on this collection: a lively 1964 recording of “Ain’t That A Shame”, a version of “Mack the Knife” and the self written heavy psych screecher “Little Things That Happen”. At one stage this track was to be a Ray Woolf & The Avengers single but the group chickened out after deciding that it might be too way out for their fans.
This significant piece of New Zealand music history has been sitting on the shelf since 1967 and debuts on this collection.