Max Merritt
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Max Merritt (born in Christchurch, New Zealand on 30 April 1941) is a New Zealand-born singer, songwriter and musician who is renowned as an interpreter of soul music and R&B. He rose to prominence in New Zealand in the late 1950s and early 1960s before relocating to Australia in the mid-1960s. Backed by his band The Meteors, he was widely acknowledged as one of the best local performers of his day; his influence did much to popularise those styles in Australia at a time when they were rarely heard on commercial radio.
Max became interested in music at an early age and started taking guitar lessons at twelve. In the mid-50s he discovered rock'n'roll and fell under the spell of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. In 1956, just after leaving school at 15, he formed The Meteors with friends Ross Clancy (sax), Peter Patene (piano), Ian Glass (bass) and Pete Sowden (drums). They started out as a part-time group, playing at dances and at charity concerts at the local Odeon theatre. Over the next six years the band played many such shows, raising thousands of dollars for local charities. During the day Max worked his apprenticeship in his father's bricklaying business.
With the enthusiastic support of his parents and the help of Odeon manager Trevor King, they launched Max in the music business, hiring and setting him up in his own venue at the Railway Hall in Christchurch, which they dubbed "The Teenage Club". Held every Sunday from 3-10 pm, The Teenage Club was an instant success. The first and only attraction of its kind in town, it drew hundreds of local teenagers every week and proved hugely popular in a city and at a time when almost all businesses and public venues were closed until late on Sunday afternoon.
Clancy was replaced by Will Schneider during 1958. By 1959 the Teenage Club had added a regular Wednesday night session, and The Meteors had become the top youth attraction in Christchurch, regularly pulling crowds of 500 or more. Max occasionally borrowed players from other bands if a Meteors member was unavailable, and one of the groups they borrowed from was The Invaders, fronted by another aspiring young Christchurch performer, Ray Columbus. Through Ray, Max met his two guitarists Dave Russell (for whom Max was a major inspiration) and young multi-instrumentalist Billy Karaitiana (a.k.a. Billy Kristian).
Merritt received the ultimate seal of approval in January 1959 when New Zealand's top rocker Johnny Devlin played in Christchurch. Then at the peak of his meteoric career, Devlin played his own show before 3000 fans, after which he went across town especially to meet Max, who was playing at a "Rock'n'Roll Jamboree" charity concert. According to New Zealand music historian John Dix, the meeting also made a big impression on Devlin's manager Graham Dent, who enthusiastically sang their praises to Auckland promoter Harry M. Miller.
Although it was primarily a university town, Christchurch gained a unique advantage as the Sixties began. In 1959, the United States government launched a huge paramilitary project to establish an American Antarctic base, imaginatively code-named "Operation Deep Freeze". Christchurch happened to have the only airfield in the region large enough to handle the huge transport planes that the Americans used to ferry staff and materials to and from the base.
The American presence brought many benefits for the locals and helped make Christchurch a hotbed of rock'n'roll music. Young American servicemen who were stationed there discovered the Teenage Club and were soon raving about the gravel-voiced young Kiwi singer. Before long, original American rock'n'roll and R&B records were finding their way onto local jukeboxes, and into the hands of fans including Max. And there was another invaluable musical advantage conferred by the American' presence – through these new connections, both The Meteors and The Invaders were able to equip themselves with full sets of prized Fender guitars and basses, which were still hard to get in countries like Australia and the UK, due to import restrictions..
