NZ Musician December/January 2010 (Vol:15, No:4)
Moments Like These: Eldred Stebbing
Author: Trevor Reekie
Eldred Claude Stebbing lost his father when aged just nine, which perhaps goes a long way to explain his battling nature and also why he for so long helmed his own family-run company. Stebbing Ltd has been one of the most enduring and most successful businesses in our entertainment sector, embracing over time the very modern paradigm of the 360 deal – beginning with recording and releasing 78s in the late 1940s, excelling in rock’n’roll A&R during the 1960s, as well as a leading record label and widely renowned recording studio.
From vinyl, through cassette and VHS tape production, today Stebbing Recording Centre Ltd is the countrys biggest CD and DVD manufacturer, having opened a comprehensive plant in 1999.
Over five decades Eldred repeatedly confirmed his entrepreneurial streak as well as considerable technical and musical abilities. When The Mint Chicks re-recorded Ray Columbus & The Invaders’ hit She’s A Mod to celebrate the bands recent NZ Hall of Fame induction, the role of Eldred Stebbing and his Zodiac Records label was brought back into focus.
Born in 1921, it has only been in very recent years that Eldred was less than actively involved in the running of the family business based in Auckland’s Herne Bay.
NZ Musician was priviledged to have this opportunity to talk with Eldred just weeks before he passed away in early December. His son Robert assisted with answering some of the questions provided for this Moments Like These column.
Can you remember when this photo was taken and what you were doing at the time of this photo being taken?
Most likely an early ‘C’mon’ show at TVNZ’s Shortland Street studios. I would have been there with Ray Woolf. I don’t know who took it but it was probably in 1964.
How did you actually get started in the music business?
My older brother Phil ran a PA system in Auckland and I would help out. When the American troops were stationed here during the war in the Pacific, we would set up the PA for their dances at Mechanics Bay.
[Eldred had led the school orchestra on violin, before leaving school at 14 and working on the assembly line at Radio Ltd. In the evenings he was the drummer in the Peter Pan nightclub band working with pianist Nancy Harry among others. – Robert]
Back in the day when you were recording young bands like the Action and the La De Da’s you would quite often makes suggestions for the A sides and the band could choose the B sides. e.g. songs How Is The Air Up There and Pied Piper. How were you keeping up with the latest music in those days?
I established a good relationship with Jack Argent at Leeds. There was a big pool of songwriters throughout the world, and as was the norm from the 1950s onwards, the big overseas publishing houses would forward pressings of songs they hoped artists over here would pick up on and subsequently record.
[Eldred was always aware of what was going on musically. He’d grown up listening to live music played in the home – his mother was principal violinist in five of the seven house-orchestras around Auckland at the time. She and her friends would often jam for fun until all hours of the night, playing everything from Viennese waltzes to popular songs of the day. – Robert]
How did you keep up with changes in technology in a time when there were severe import restrictions and overseas developments took ages to get here?
I tuned in on the short-wave frequency to KDKA (broadcast out of LA) and initially made direct-to-disc recordings of the music before the advent of the tape recorder.
[Eldred also listened on short-wave to the Armed Forces’ network and would discover certain types of music before anyone else. From this the influence of recording pioneers such as Les Paul became evident on his records, such as Hawaiian Rock And Roll and followed by the Peter Posa recordings. – Robert]
You recorded Artie Shaw's big band for the American Armed Forces radio stations in NZ, and also Gracie Fields when she performed in the Farmers building. How did those sessions come about?
The Artie Shaw big-band recording was made via landline from the Auckland Town Hall to the Dalgety Buildings (which housed the studio of Spacman & Howarth, soon after taken over by the NZBC because of the war effort). We recorded Artie Shaw direct to 16" disc. This indirectly forced us into the recording industry, as the request had come from the Armed Forces to begin recording such events. Artie Shaw was magnificent in concert, 16-piece band including string section. He performed to over 3000 people. Gracie Fields was polite and very nice to work with. I met the likes of Eleanour Roosevelt, who visited NZ during this time. Nowadays people forget the bloodshed and true horror of the war in the Pacific. I also worked for the Red Cross and had seen some terrible sights.
Many of the great NZ bands recorded at your studio and played residencies at your nightclub, the Galaxie. In some respects you pioneered a business model that is relevant today i.e. becoming all things to the artist. Was that plan conceived consciously or was it more a case of many happy accidents combining to evolve as a business model?
We had not intended owning a live-music venue but when the Galaxie was offered to us, we took it on and proceeded to build up the clientele from zero to full-house. We made it work simply because we had to. Bands would play for four to five hours a night, then often rehearse until dawn, which was certainly an advantage for bands on our label.
In May 1964, shortly after arriving back here, Columbus and his band recorded She’s A Mod – a song written by an obscure British songwriter Terry Beale. I believe that initially only Columbus thought it had potential – how did you convince The Invaders that it would be the greatest career move they could make?
With Columbus And The Invaders, when it came to the recording side of things. I was directing their operations so I was able to make the call regarding which material was recorded for the singles.
[When Eldred believed strongly in a song, he rarely needed to convince his artists into recording it. Time and again his instincts were proven correct, and there are countless examples over the decades. With Till We Kissed Eldred knew they needed to go in a completely different direction, and it went on to become the group’s second No. 1 hit. – Robert]
You frequently worked bands that you were representing in foreign territories, especially Australia. Of course travelling in those days was not a logistically easy achievement. Just how hard was it coming from NZ and slogging it out in those territories back then?
With Columbus And The Invaders in Sydney, I’d go down to John Harrigan’s Surf City club every morning, asking if the band could get a gig there. By chance, after two weeks I got the call to say the lead singer of their regular band had developed laryngitis and couldn’t perform. So with them booked at Surf City for one gig only, I contacted every available DJ in the city and arranged taxis to transport them down to the club. I also managed to talk Brian Henderson (who hosted the nationally-televised Bandstand) to come along. Ray and The Invaders were sensational and from this the band’s rise to the top was meteoric. They appeared on Bandstand, and two weeks later She’s A Mod became the No. 1 record in Australia.
[Taking bands like the La De Da’s and Ray Columbus and The Invaders to Australia was a bit like taking coals to Newcastle. They had their own bands over there and really didn’t want to know about bands from NZ. But Eldred sensed that given the opportunity – which he made happen – his bands were of such a high-calibre they could indeed break through, which they subsequently did. I think he flew to Sydney and back a dozen times in 1964 – no mean feat back in those days. – Robert]
The story goes that you discovered The Pleazers and brought them to NZ in 1964, with a promise of guaranteed work and unlimited studio time. In those days A&R didn’t really exist, you were miles ahead of the rest. What makes for successful A&R?
First of all, you need to be looking at a group’s or artist’s ambitions, then you need to see if their vision is compatible – if they have what it takes to make it work. Then you need a hit song and a great performance, backed by a creative production.
[Eldred was also offered the Bee Gees (who were very young) but decided to sign The Pleazers instead to perform at the Galaxie as they were the better live act, although the Bee Gees’ demo was very good, as one would expect! – Robert]
The first Howard Morrison Quartet album was recorded by you in Howard’s mum’s living room on a Grundig tape recorder, and recorded The Battle of Waikato (which sold 40,000 singles) in the Auckland Town Hall. Harry M Miller then signed the Quartet to his La Gloria label and that was the end of the Stebbing association. How philosophical were you about losing great artists like that?
We just carried on as we always did. There was the occasion when we took out a court order against Harry Miller (who’d re-recorded The Battle Of Waikato) and was in direct competition with our own release. The court ruled in our favour and ordered around 30,000 copies of their single to be destroyed. To his credit, Harry took it all in his stride, but I’m sure you won’t read about that in his new book!
Who was the most imposing presence you have ever been in the presence of?
Frank Sinatra.
As a man who has spent a lifetime in music what pleases you and what annoys you most about the current local music scene?
I feel with the local music today that great instrumentalists are few and far between – there was a time when musicians had to earn their reputations but that seems to have disappeared altogether.
You have employed a veritable who’s who of recording engineer’s and producers like Phil Yule, Ian Morris, Rob Aitkin and many more – what skills and talent makes for a great engineer and producer?
A good musical background and an appreciation of all types of music, plus the ability to be creative as well as technically excellent and easy to work with. Someone you’ve failed to mention is John Hawkins, who came over from London in 1963 having worked closely with Joe Meek on hits such as The Telstars’ Tornado. Hawkins produced She’s A Mod and countless other hits including Sitting in The Rain and Rain And Tears. Our head engineer Tony Moan (who joined us aged 15) was trained by John.
What are your personal favourite records – what songs still never fail to brighten your day?
Glenn Miller, Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Count Basie.
Back in the ’60s print media thought rock’n’roll would never last.
The music we (and others) were making back then was in its infancy, so it’s hardly surprising that longevity wasn’t considered. Those were pioneering days – I remember radio in NZ refusing to play She’s A Mod, and it wasn’t until it topped the Australian charts did it get any airplay here.
You were awarded the NZ Order of Merit for what has truly been a lifetime of service to NZ music, primarily in the areas of recording and duplicating. What other achievements are you most proud of?
Receiving the Benny Award from the Variety Artists Club (NZ) in 2004, the Lifetime Achievement Award from RIANZ in 2001, the NEBOA Award in 1973. Also the 1999 opening of our CD and DVD plant – an enormous undertaking – which has been described as technically the best in Australasia.
Do you think you could start a label like Zodiac in today’s climate?
Definitely.
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