Tribute to Maori from Onehunga

Press, 27 July 1988, Page 20

Tribute to Maori from Onehunga

From JUDY O’CONNOR in Sydney Back in 1952, a young Maori singer, his spirit bounding after winning a talent quest in one of Auckland’s avant-garde coffee lounges, the essence of cosmopolitanism in its day, decided to risk everything and try his luck in the entertainment world across the Tasman. It was well before the tide of Maori entertainers began to flock to Australia. Aged 15, Ricky May landed in Sydney and got a job singing in one of Sydney’s first nightclubs, The Latin Quarter, in Pitt Street. Described as something between heaven and hell, the Latin Quarter was an old-style nightclub that could have been modelled on a Damon Runyon story. Clientele included politicians, lawyers, police, gangsters, punters and ordinary people celebrating anniversaries and birthdays. A notorious gunman was once shot dead there. “I had left school at 13, with a zero in everything except English,” Ricky said at the time. “I got 86 in English, so they used to call me Mr 86.” It was the first of a string of nicknames Ricky was to acquire. Another was, ironically, Skinny Legs, which friends in New Zealand called him because of his bony knees. But ,in June, Ricky May’s weight hit a massive 162 kg and his legs, and heart, failed him. After performing to a standing ovation at Sydney’s number one night spot, the Regent Hotel, at Circular Quay, he did not make it back on stage for the encore. Instead, the big man, once described by Dave Brubeck as the greatest jazz singer in the world, and known in Australia as the Magnificent Maori, suffered a fatal heart attack and collapsed in the corridor outside his dressing room. He was discovered a few minutes later by one of the hotel staff. He was aged 44.

The Australian Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, was one of the many mourners who paid tribute to Ricky, the Maori from Onehunga, who had landed in Australia as a nobody, with nothing, overwhelmed and frightened by the size of the city. “His death is a tragic loss to the entertainment industry,” Mr Hawke said. “He was a giving person who worked hard for charity.” The former Olympic swimmer, Dawn Fraser, was also part of Ricky’s funeral procession which stretched for two kilometres through the city streets. Entertainers, musicians, television stars, journalists, sporting heroes, and politicians all joined to mourn one of Sydney’s best loved entertainers. . Sadly, he never lived to fulfil a special dream. He was due to return to New Zealand next month for a 13-week series on Auckland television. He was also booked for last month’s Telethon.

IN SYDNEY

Judy O' Connor

His funeral was a combination of a traditional Maori farewell and a jazz performer’s wake. His brothers, sisters and cousins, who arrived from New Zealand, sang traditional Maori songs, including “Now is the Hour” as the coffin was carried from the church, and Australia’s top musicians played “When the Saints Go Marching In” as they marched through the streets, each coming forward to touch the coffin. Ricky May, also known in Australia by another of his nicknames, Mr Yes, because he could not say no to a worthy cause, was born in Onehunga, the youngest of seven. “Like most Maoris, we had no shoes and three guitars,” he told reporters. His father, Kotcy, played the saxophone and his mother the piano. “We had our own band, called Swing and

Sway with Kotcy May and the Rhythm Rascals.” He left school at 13 and got his first job at 15 working in a hardware store, where he was sacked for whistling. “I did what every 15 year old does when he is down, I went to the 5 o’clock pictures.”

On his way home, he noticed the Picasso coffee shop in Auckland had a sign offering free coffee and a toasted sandwich to anyone who would sing a song. “I sang ‘Mack the Knife,’ which was banned at the time. My brother had been given the words from some sailors off a boat. I sang an up-market version which the band couldn’t follow, so I grabbed the guitar and played it myself,” Ricky recalled.

He later entered a talent quest and, after winning, came to Australia, where he was promoted as New Zealand’s own Chubby Checker. Two years later, he met his wife, Colleen, a dancer at the Latin Quarter, and they had a daughter, Shani, now 20. Their marriage was close and loving. They had already made arrangements to return to the church they were married in to reaffirm their vows. Instead, Colleen went alone, to hear Ricky’s funeral service.

His weight had always been a problem. “I try my best but I just can’t stop eating,” he said. His brother, Keith, remarked at the funeral: “He had a weight problem. But he had so much goodness, talent and generosity it

would never have fitted into a small framed person. “He made light of it. He showed there was a place in the world for big people,” Keith said. One of Australia’s best-known television personalities, Daryl Somers, said: “It was part of his Maori personality that everything he had, he had to share with everybody else. To be with him was like being connected to a life force. You would spend some time with him and go away full of energy. “I am sure he would not want, everybody to be grieving and sobbing for him. He is probably in Heaven organising a jam session with Louis Armstrong and other greats who were his idols,” Somers said.

The top Australian jazz musician, Don Burrows, described Ricky as “one of those remarkably adaptable singers who could fit in at a jazz concert or a pantomime, or musical. He worked just as easily with tiny children as a sophisticated jazz audience.” A couple of days before his death he performed for 200 handicapped children, hugging them and making them laugh. Although Ricky May took our Australian citizenship this year because he felt it was a mark of allegiance he owed to Australia for the good fortune he had enjoyed, he was torn with emotion.

Typically, he expressed it in a song he had completed just before his death. The title? “Born Into a Beautiful Race.” In his heart, he was forever a Kiwi.