Footnotes "Oh, dance, dance, dance to my ten guitars," is often sung "Oh, hula, hula, hula to my ten guitars," usually to appropriate actions. "...you know just where you are," is usually sung "...you'll know just where you are." "...you see a thousand stars," is usually sung "...you'll see a thousand stars." "Guitars are made for love..." is sometimes (wrongly) sung "Stars are made for love..." "So give each one a pretty girl..." is sometimes sung, "So give them all the pretty girls..." or "So give them each a pretty girl..." Arnold Dorsey (Who?) Arnold George Dorsey was born on May 2nd, 1936, in Madras, India and raised in Leicester, England. In 1953, at the age of 17, he was "dared" to sing a song in a contest and received a standing ovation from the crowd... In 1966, his manager changed his name from Gerry Dorsey, the stage name he was using at the time, to Engelbert Humperdinck, after a 19th century Austrian composer famous for writing "Hansel and Gretel." This stage name became well known when he sang Please Release Me on a British TV show. Please Release Me became a hit in England, and as Engelbert, Dorsey became successful as one of the singing sex symbols of the cabaret circuit. His biography says it wasn't only the unusual stage name, but talent, charm, sex-appeal, and his three and-a-half octave range voice which gave him success. Ten Guitars was the song on the other side of the Release Me 45 rpm record. FULL BIOGRAPHY How Ten Guitars became popular in New Zealand Eddie O'Strange has kindly sent details of his part in making Ten Guitars so popular in NZ, while it has remained unknown elsewhere in the world. Thanks Eddie. "September 1967, Rotorua. I was chief programme officer at station 1YZ. That day the weekly box of new records arrived from Head Office, Wellington. As usual we took a quick listen to all the singles. "An HMV rep had asked us to look out for Engelbert Humperdinck's Please Release Me- "In England they've got high hopes for this guy, but his name's unmarketable and it's been a struggle to get it charted back home". My first impression was that the guy was a great singer but the old song's popped-up arrangement was a tad too histrionic. "I flipped the single to Ten Guitars and before it was over I said "That's a song that could be turned into a hit in this country." The reaction was underwhelming and cynical. I had a mission! "I played in a band 5 nights a week at the Redwood Lounge at the DB Hotel. That same week I scrawled out chord charts and started singing Ten Guitars. Within a couple of weeks we were getting constant requests for the song. "It wasn't long before I was typing out the words and handing out carbon copies at the pub to patrons who wanted to learn the song. By the end of the year we heard that some people on the East Coast and up in Northland were singing it. "The local record shop firstly ordered a few copies of the record, then started ordering by the box [25 copies]. Meanwhile, back at the radio station, we played both sides of the single but it was the B-Side that got requests. The A-Side, Please Release Me was doing nothing on the national charts, but the sales of Ten Guitars in Rotorua were enough for HMV to claim that it was chart-bound, and persuaded radio stations around NZ to spin it. Shearing song George Black remembers: "When I was shearing for Roy Horton around Taihape, Ten Guitars was the top of the hit parade at the time. Because of the flow of the music it was easy to shear, to so when a certain researcher was collecting 'New Zealand work songs' I suggested Ten Guitars!" Ten Guitars on record Engelbert Humperdinck At His Very Best, CD 1997 Ten Guitars has been recorded on about a dozen New Zealand Maori, Pacific Island, and C&W sing-along recordings. Here are a few typical track lists. Joe "Fingers" Webster & His River City Mainlanders, Kiwi Party CD 1990 Sailing away ; Cheryl Moana Marie ; Blue smoke (goes drifting by) ; Tania ; Pretty girl ; Ten guitars ; Hine e hine ; Sticky beak the kiwi ; My old man's an All Black ; Tahi nei taru kino ; Haere ra e hine ; Haere mai ; There's a fraction too much friction ; Tumblin' down ; Ballad of Waitaki ; McKenzie & his dog ; Mäori Battalion; Life begins at forty ; Ei pö ; A slice of heaven ; God defend New Zealand ; Pinnochio ; Te Piriti/The bridge (Il silenzio) ; Rugby racing and beer ; I got you ; Hoki mai ; Karu karu ; E pari rä ; Pokarekare ana ; Hoki hoki tonu mai ; Pania of the reef ; Manu rere ; Poi e ; Now is the hour. Brendan Dugan, Country's Greatest CD 1993. My elusive dreams ; McKenzie & his dog ; Flowers for Mama ; Wings of a dove ; Almost persuaded ; Do what you do do well ; I can't help it ; I love you drops ; Have I told you lately that I love you ; You're the nearest thing to heaven ; Oh lonesome me ; I fall to pieces ; Ten guitars ; All the time. Melissa Gosselin, Cook Islands song quest winner CD 1995 Ko te po Énake ; Oh Carol ; Return to me ; Mou, mou, moumou ; Te reo ; Rarotonga, ko koe tÉku ; Te hei nei au ; Fernando ; Close your eyes (Beatles) ; Tupu te manako ; Rarotonga, ipukarea ; Just one look ; Kua akatipitipi ; Ten guitars. Michael Parekowhai's "Ten Guitars, 1999" From the apt3.net website (but alas, no longer there) Ten guitars 1999 Customised guitars comprising variety of woods, paua inlay, steel strings, chrome hardware, speakers, video 10 pieces: 110 x 40 x 20cm (each, approx.) Collection: The artist Michael Parekowhai's Ten Guitars is named after the song which was adopted as an unofficial Maori anthem while the artist was growing up. The work consists of ten guitars transformed into glitteringly decorated showpieces, with New Zealand paua shell inlaid in traditional Maori patterns. This expresses the idea of the Maori as a performer, alluding to an area in which indigenous New Zealanders have been most likely to achieve notoriety in their country. The shell inlay used for this work has traditionally been applied to treasured Maori objects, but also gives an impression of the glitter associated with Nashville or Las Vegas. Blurring distinctions between popular culture and fine art, Parekowhai's work raises issues of uncertainty about what is sacred in contemporary culture, issues which are significant in a far wider context than that of New Zealand society. From artspace.org.nz In the 1960s the guitar became a "Happy Maori" trademark, the ultimate party instrument - everyone played. And the "boom-chucka-boom-chucka" Maori strum, with the strumming hand damping the strings, was something distinctive. Michael Parekowhai has created ten customised hollow body guitars, jazzed up with paua inlays reproducing classic Maori kowhaiwhai patterns. These are flashy instruments for performers, entertainers, name artists, show-offs. Promoting a utopian social ideal of playing together in harmony - a bicultural idea - the Humpedinck anthem to guitar playing is something Maori took to their hearts and claimed as their own. When the artist was a boy, the model of the successful Maori - the Maori "done good" - was the performer, be it as entertainer (Dame Kiri and Sir Howard Morrison) or athlete (particularly rugby players). There's something of this concern for showmanship recalled here in the consumate crafting of the guitars. From elam.auckland.ac.nz In the 60s, Parekowhai suggests, the guitar was a portable meeting-house. In a time of Maori urbanisation, when traditional community structures were breaking down, people came together, sang and felt a sense of belonging as a collective around the guitar. "When I was at secondary school in Porirua, before DJs came along with their scratchy records," he says, "we'd still take a guitar along to a party. There was always someone who could play a hell of a lot better than you, so basically you'd hope someone else would bring one, or one would already be there." On one level, then, Ten Guitars is a cultural celebration; but it's much more than just nostalgia for the 60s and beer-crate circles on the back lawn. Parekowhai examines the cultural undercurrents behind the cliché of the "happy Maori with his guitar". Was that image empowering even ahead of the 1970s so-called Maori renaissance? Are the words to "Ten Guitars" a directive to treat the guitarist's axe as warrior's taiaha? "Dance, dance, dance to my 10 guitars," they go, "and very soon you'll know just where you are." Where?" Aotearoa" might as well be the unsaid next line. From artmaori.com Michael Parekowhai as a child born in to the new urban, de-tribalised Maori reality, is relating to the 1960's utopian dream of an assimilated Maori. The paradox of this Maori 'space' created by Ten Guitars is that its Art Gallery placement and the evident flashiness of the guitars might serve as a 'wake-up' to how much we sold out to this dream. The commercialisation of both guitar and lightbox kowhaiwhai, the Maori as performer aspect and the negative cultural associations of the all-night booze party suggests more likely that the guitar colonised us. photo by Rob Kitchin - Evening Post Maori Songs - Main Song List - Home Published on NZFS, December, 2001 Modified for small screens Apr 2021