Peter Posa born 8 August 1941

Peter Paul Posa MNZM (8 August 1941 – 3 February 2019) was a New Zealand rock and pop guitarist most famous for his instrumental "The White Rabbit", which was released in 1963. The song is a guitar instrumental that sold 100,000 copies.

Posa was born in Henderson, West Auckland, New Zealand, to Paul and Millie Posa, who had migrated from Croatia. He was the youngest of three sons born into the industrious Yugoslav family. The family business was an orchard growing apples, peaches and plums, but eventually Mr Paul Posa could see that Henderson was proving to be an ideal place for making wine. So out went the fruit trees and in came the vineyard. Peter wasn't greatly interested in all that because from a very early age he had his mind set on music and specifically playing the guitar. He started on ukulele when he was seven. After that he used to spend all his spare time making his own toy guitars.

Pere & His Combo

Finally for his ninth birthday, Peter was given his first real guitar. It was a South African Galatone which his father bought for £5 from a second-hand shop. He used to listen to his family's old 78 rpm records, country artists like Tex Morton and Col Wilson and try to copy the guitar licks. He had a few lessons to learn the chords, but worked out all the rest for himself. The family couldn't get the guitar off him. He got a better instrument when he was eleven and his older brothers used to take him around to talent quests.  At age twelve Peter at last got his first amplifier and began taking a deep interest in the multi-guitar sounds which Les Paul was turning out in the States, this was a major influence on his early career. As he developed in his teenage years he led the Peter Posa Combo which used to play for all types of dances and functions in West Auckland. After leaving Henderson High School, Peter thought it was time to make his first record, so he approached Eldred Stebbing of the Zodiac label. Eldred wasn't interested in recording the Posa Combo, but could see a real technical challenge in the multiple guitar style in which Peter overdubbed all the tracks himself.

                                       

So the first record was put together in late 1959. It was "Sweet Georgia Brown"/"Some Of These Days" and was the start of his solo career, with nightclub engagements and several more singles to follow. In 1961 the first real breakthrough came when Peter did his own version of the Stringalongs hit "Wheels". It was played on the Lever Hit Parade and suddenly he had a nationwide tour as support act for the English singing sensation Helen Shapiro. 

By 1963 Peter was feeling the need to branch out and develop his own guitar style in different directions. So he signed a deal with Viking Records, the "hot" label at the time, which also had the advantage of overseas outlets. His first record there was "Galloping Guitars"/"Jessie", but out of the blue two Auckland musicians, Bill Ivory and Graham Rosling arrived with a tune that they thought had potential. Peter loved it at first hearing and it was about to change his life. "The White Rabbit" was the name, and even in that wonderful year of 1963, when the Beatles had just arrived and the charts were overflowing with million sellers, it received enormous airplay.

Peter was now headlining his own national tour with co-artists Bill & Boyd, and Max Merritt and the Meteors. A string of hit records followed including "Thee Mad Hatter", "Grasshopper" and "Hitch Hiker". Peter himself wrote "Gonk", named after the fluffy toy of the moment, and then the track mysteriously called "?", and the radio contest to find it's name, which was eventually "Flapjack".

1963 and 1964 were one long whirl, Peter says he worked 363 out of 365 days in one of those years. On top of his New Zealand shows, he toured Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tahiti and Vanuatu. To cap it all off, Viking's Ron Dalton arranged for "White Rabbit" to be released in the USA and for Peter to do six months work there. Before he left, his farewell tour, the "Peter Posa Spectacular" swept through the country, which took about eight weeks so huge was the public interest.

Peter right of Frank Sinatra

In Nashville, Peter spent time at all the major recording studios and met his hero Chet Atkins. He played on the TV show Hollywood Palace where he was accompanied by the legendary jazz guitarist Herb Ellis. He met Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in Las Vegas, and worked his gigs mainly in LA. Peter was on his own in the States and very homesick. So he made the decision to come home for Christmas 1964 and to confine his future touring to the South Pacific. Back in New Zealand Peter became a prolific recording artist making more albums than any other New Zealander. He toured the country many times, often as part of the Miss NZ Shows, which now included the likes of Eddie Lowe, Howard Morrison, John Hore and Paul Walden, and also on tours by Marty Robbins, Roger Whittaker, Hank Snow, Slim Whitman and Demis Roussos. In Fiji he was made an honourary chief, in Noumea he was known as "King Peter", and he dedicated one of his compositions "French Caledonian Blue" to that market. He had residencies at some of Auckland's top venues, including the Troika.

In 1965, Peter released one single with the Chicks called "Do You Wanna Dance"/"Terry".There were a few more singles during 1967 and 1967. They were two on Zodiac and one on Joe Brown, and this bought his total singles to 27. During the vinyl years, Peter released 20 albums, (2 on Zodiac, 16 on Viking, 1 on Salem and 1 on Axis).There were also 16 EP's from 1961 to 1967.Then at the height of his fame, he collapsed, suffering from nervous exhaustion, and checked himself into a private hospital where he was given electric shock treatment. "My health improved. I think the ECT helped a lot." He kept it a secret; if the public knew he was suffering from depression, his career would have collapsed. Over the years Peter began drinking to help with his anxiety issues, eventually the drinking got worse. He crashed his car driving home drunk one night in 1970. The car crash was the beginning of the end of his career. He never made another LP. Peter went on the sickness benefit, suffering from  agonising whiplash, and drank even more to try to dull the pain.

There are two people in this story who have been pivotal in the resurrection of Peter Posa. Most importantly his wife Margaret who he met at a church healing meeting and married in 1991. By 1992 he was off the bottle and starting to pick up the guitar again. The other is Jim Wallace, whose sons Alex, Robert and Jimmy accompany Posa on the two-CD, half country/half gospel album ‘My Pick’ recorded in 2003. That fact is the more remarkable considering that Posa was not as match-fit as he would like to be and was still suffering on-going health problems. Guitar overdubbing would seem to be the obvious option, but he wanted to capture the spirit of a live group playing together in real time. It’s for reasons of the same search for immediacy and expressiveness that he switched to acoustic. By December 1992 he and Margaret moved to Margaret’s family property in Te Awamutu. It wasn't until 2007 that Peter's album My Pick was named International Instrumentalist CD of the Year by the United States’ National Traditional Country Music Association.

He had three attempts at taking his life. After the third he was rushed to Waikato Hospital, and transferred to the psych ward. It was during these dark days that Posa was listed in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours and was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to entertainment. In 2012, White Rabbit The Very Best of Peter Posa went to the top of the New Zealand album charts, spending six weeks at the number-one spot making it the year’s biggest selling release. But nothing ever really changed with Posa's depression, until he suffered a massive stroke in 2016. The left side of his body was paralysed. Much later he recovered movement in his shoulder and arm, but the hand remained inert. It was like the ultimate shock treatment that helped him turn to religion. Posa said: "The best thing that ever happened to me. It made me see the light. I'm a born-again Christian. I love my life now." Peter continued to live happily in Auckland with his wife Margaret, until he passed away at Waikato Hospital on 3 February 2019.

(Edited from a bio by Bruce Sergent & Peter Posa's website)