Red Hewitt

aka Alan Hewitt, Red Hewitt & The Buccaneers


Like the Keil Isles, Red Hewitt and his Buccaneers were playing rock and roll in Auckland clubs and dance halls in the mid-1950s, before Johnny Devlin arrived in town. But their status as pioneers has been eclipsed.

Perhaps it is because Johnny Devlin recorded ‘Lawdy Miss Clawdy’ a year before Hewitt made his vinyl debut, or that it was two months after Devlin’s barnstorming 1959 tour that he was first seen nationwide, as the support act for Johnny O’Keefe, the Australian Elvis.

The NZ Herald reports enthusiastically on Red Hewitt, 1960
Red Hewitt and Eddie Howell woo Wellington, 1960
The Howard Morrison Quartet and Red Hewitt's band storm Pukekohe in 1959
Red Hewitt & The Buccaneers in a 1960 Audion publicity shot. Left to right: Gary Daverne (on the floor), Peter Cox (normally a bassist but seen here with a guitar), George Jones, Red Hewitt and Johnny Willetts.
Bassist Peter Cox from The Buccaneers
Red Hewitt at the Auckland Town Hall, 1960
Robbin The Cradle (Bandstand, 1961)
The "Teen Beat" column in Joy magazine hails the Howard Morrison Quartet, Ronnie Sundin, The Keil Isles and Red Hewitt as the successors to Johnny Devlin, late 1959
Red Hewitt & The Buccaneers - Beatnik Fly
Red Hewitt & The Buccaneers - DJ Blues
Red Hewitt
Red meets the Governor-General
Red Hewitt & The Buccaneers - Betty Lou's Got A New Pair of Shoes
Red Hewitt & The Buccaneers rocking lower Queen Street, circa 1960. There's clearly a circus involved as there's a dog, a horse and a monkey in the shot, althought any further explanation seems lost in time.
Photo credit: Simon Grigg Collection
Trivia:

Gary Daverne would, in the 1960s, own Viscount Records which would record Mr. Lee Grant and The Gremlins amongst other acts. In the 1990s he was the conductor of the Auckland Symphonia.

Labels:

Zodiac


Audion


HMV

Funded by

Partners with