The Sunday Series: as the era ends: Max Merritt

Another of those names from that now historic New Zealand rock band era has died. Max Merritt front man of Max Merritt and The Meteors died in his longtime home Los Angeles. While for many of his contemporaries band life and music would have been an interlude, Merritt was one of those for whom music remained his profession and way of life.

I have this image of Merritt on one of those early New Zealand television “pop shows” in a grey Beatle suit edged in black – or was that Ray Columbus? His appearance, like the Beatles, went through many iterations. I’m not sure about the denim mustache but the 1988 Merritt exhibited a Springsteen kind of polished working cool.

I think we owe Merritt’s generation of musicians an acknowledgement of how much they contributed to enlivening the previously staid and grey social landscape of New Zealand – I know I was there.

As I listened to his anthem “Slipping Away” I realized how much this country and our attitudes have changed. As I sang them the same awful feeling came over me when, years ago , I moved “a thousand eyes” from intense love and feeling to stalker’s anthem. I felt that same shudder from those now classic words “baby I’ve been watching you, watching everything you do…” slid out.

Baby I’ve been watching you
Watching everything you do
And I just can’t help but feeling
Someone else is stealing you away from me
I see it written in your eyes
You confirm it with your lies
Though the web that you weave can hold me
I would rather that you told me
Where you wanna be
Oooh slipping away from me
Oooh slipping away from me
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you slipping away
Baby I’ve been watching you
Watching everything you do
And I just can’t help but feeling
Someone else is stealing you away from me
I see it written in your eyes
You confirm it with your lies
Though the web that you weave can hold me
I would rather that you told me
Where you wanna be
Oooh slipping away from me
Oooh slipping away from me
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you slipping away
…
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you slipping away
…
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you slipping away
Baby I’ve been watching you
Watching everything you do
And I just can’t help but feeling
Someone else is stealing you away from me
I see it written in your eyes
You confirm it with your lies
Though the web that you weave can hold me
I would rather that you told me
Where you wanna be
Oooh slipping away from me
Oooh slipping away from me
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you slipping away
…
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you slipping away
…
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you slipping away
…
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you slipping away

There is an extensive biography for Max on Wikipedia. A lifetime of performance achievement. Here’s a fragment.

“Maxwell James Merritt^[1] (30 April 1941^[2] – 24 September 2020) was a New Zealand-born singer-songwriter and guitarist who was renowned as an interpreter of soul music and R&B.^[3] As leader of Max Merritt & The Meteors his best known hits are “Slippin’ Away“, which reached No. 2 on the 1976 Australian singles charts, and “Hey, Western Union Man” which reached No. 13.^[4] Merritt rose to prominence in New Zealand from 1958 and relocated to Sydney, Australia, in December 1964.^[3]^[5]^[6] Merritt was acknowledged as one of the best local performers of the 1960s and 1970s and his influence did much to popularise soul music / R&B and rock in New Zealand and Australia.^[3]^[5]^[6]^[7]

Merritt was a venerable pioneer of rock in Australasia who produced crowd-pleasing shows for over 50 years.^[8] He engendered respect and affection over generations of performers. This was evident at the 2007 Concert for Max^[7] which was organised to provide financial support for him after it was announced he had Goodpasture’s syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease.^[9] The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) recognised Merritt’s iconic status on 1 July 2008 when he was inducted into their hall of fame.^[10]^[11]^[12]

Max Merritt’s death wasn’t the only one for me this week. I barely heard the dull thud somewhere around the house. I found the body, of breathtaking beauty, lying on the concreted garage floor. It must have hit the window at speed and the impact killed it and threw it back onto the ground.

It wasn’t Fatty Fatty Bomba Latte the huge Kereru whose feats of balance inching down tiny Kowhai twigs astounds me. He looks as big as hen. This Kereru was much smaller. I cried. At the superb colours of the feathers, the astounding patterns, the shape of the tail feathers, the sad curled little red feet and closed eye. What an absolute waste.

Fatty always flies up into one of the Makomako (Wineberry) trees if I dare to walk past his Kowhai. This smaller Kereru may have investigated the Kowhai and then taken off and at low height flown into the garage towards the window to the back garden on the opposite wall. This line is a regular flight path for the Kereru and I think they’re on their way to the huge Puriri tree on Whakakamrama Road by the School. Kereru in the know fly past the house and over the washing line.

I read two waiata from the back of my Te Reo course book over the Kereru. In little vinyl gloves I put the body on a large old box lid.

I ring the DOC number for “the injured and dead”. “The local ranger will contact me and they will tell me if they want the Kereru or I can “dispose of it”. The thought of putting this Kereru into the garden seems such a waste. I ask if I am allowed to give it to local iwi? The ranger will tell me if I can legally do that. If the ranger doesn’t contact me by the end of this afternoon I’ll be making sure at least the feathers are not wasted. It’s one thing to tell us these birds matter and it’s another thing to act as if they do. And it reminds me that death does not keep office hours. Death is always open for business.

Rosemary Balu. Rosemary Balu is the founding and current Managing Editor of ARTbop. Rosemary has arts and law degrees from the University of Auckland. She has been a working lawyer and has participated in a wide variety of community activities where information gathering, submission writing, community advocacy and education have been involved. Interested in all forms of the arts since childhood Rosemary is focused on further developing and expanding multi-media ARTbop as the magazine for all the creative arts in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

Mahuru September is BAM here in Aotearoa New Zealand – Bee Aware Month! Check out The Sunday Series: to bee or not to bee, where we honour these hard working members of our world.