Graham Reid | | 1 min read
For many reasons, the conflict in Vietnam came with its own soundtrack.
The war and the music were fed and defined by the young age of the Allied combatants; the turnover of new US, Australian and New Zealand troops arriving; those back from R’n’R leave (rest and recreation) in places like Sydney or Manila with their nightclubs and bands; the portability of records, transistor radios and record players …
That’s why no American film about the Vietnam war since seems complete without songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival (‘Run Through the Jungle’, ‘Fortunate Son’), the Animals (‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’), or the Doors’ doom-laden ‘The End’, which opened Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now.
During the war – which ended in 1975 with the evacuation of Allied personnel – there was also the entertainment for the troops near the front line. Many New Zealand artists – mostly Māori showbands – went to Vietnam, performing under dangerous conditions.
“We were performing at a base outside Da Nang on the back of a truck when the fighting broke out,” Mahora Peters of the Māori Volcanics wrote in her band biography Showband!
“Again without warning we were hustled into a foxhole, me still in my skin-tight sequined gown. Upside down I went with no apologies as helicopters flew overhead and the bombs fell dangerously close.”
From 1963 to 1975 more than 3000 New Zealand troops served in Vietnam – 37 killed, almost 200 wounded – although the number of New Zealanders on the ground (fewer than 550 in any year) was small in comparison with the hundreds of thousands of Americans and more than 50,000 Australians.
What these men and women wanted in their downtime in Vietnam – usually on well-guarded military bases or in the fleshpots of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) – was entertainment which allowed them to escape their reality for a while.
And that is what the Māori showbands provided: a mix of . . .
To read the rest of this article go to Audioculture here.
Audioculture is the self-described Noisy Library of New Zealand Music and is an ever-expanding archive of stories, scenes, artists, clips and music. Elsewhere is proud to have some small association with it. Check it out here.
You can see one of the very few local anti-war songs at NZonScreen here.
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