He’s been credited with contributing toward New Zealand music’s ‘big bang’ moment, but Richmond’s Jim Carter says he was “lucky”.
On his lap steel guitar in 1948, Jim played the first notes on ‘Blue Smoke’ written by Ruru Karaitiana and sung by Pixie Williams. The recording became the debut release for Tanza, New Zealand’s first indie label, and was a huge local hit, selling more than 50,000 copies on 78rpm disc.
“It was the first record made wholly in New Zealand, it was a very special record,” says Jim.
The 99-year-old has outlived the others involved in the recording, one of the downfalls to longevity, he says.
It was back in 1936 when, as a seventeen-year-old living in Lower Hutt, he first picked up the lap steel guitar.
“I liked the sound of the steel guitar. They just sound better. No other instrument sounds the same as a steel guitar, you can’t copy it on any other instrument,” says Jim.
During WW11 he joined the army but tuberculosis kept him away from the action. Post-war the dance band scene was booming and Jim was soon playing regularly at dance halls.
A successful audition for the 2YA Orchestra – what is now Radio NZ – led to Jim playing his lap steel guitar for live broadcasts out of a Wellington studio.
“It was a terrific time, they were all much better than me so I learnt a lot.”
Jim’s contribution to New Zealand’s music history didn’t stop at ‘Blue Smoke’, he went on to play in Ken Avery’s ‘Paekakariki’ and Johnny Cooper’s hits, ‘One by One’, ‘Look What You Done’, and ‘Pie-Cart Rock ‘n’ Roll, and his version of ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
In 2015, esteemed kiwi musician Neil Finn visited Jim to make a recording of ‘Blue Smoke’ to mark the centenary of Anzac day.
Nowadays Jim says he still plays daily but it is “much for my own amusement”, and his time is spent surfing YouTube where he enjoys watching various steel guitar clips and taking cyber tours to Hawaii, where lap steel guitars originated and he never managed to visit.