New Zealand rock

Rock music in New Zealand, also known as Kiwi rock, began in 1955 when Wellington-based country singer Johnny Cooper (popularly known as the ‘Māori cowboy’) released a cover of American Bill Haley’s hit song ‘Rock around the clock’. In 1956 Cooper wrote and recorded an original song, "Pie Cart Rock and Roll". The song referred to a pie cart he visited while in Whanganui managing talent shows. The song is believed to be New Zealand’s first indigenous rock ’n’ roll recording, though ‘Resuscitation rock’, written by Wellington teenager Sandy Tansley in March 1957, may have been released a few weeks earlier than Cooper’s song.

Singer Johnny Devlin was touted as New Zealand’s Elvis Presley, and his cover of Lawdy, Miss Clawdy remains one of New Zealand’s biggest-selling singles, having sold 100,000 copies in 1959-60, following the first rock and roll record recorded outside the US, Johnny Cooper's recording of Rock Around The Clock for HMV in the mid-1950s. In 1959 Mabel Howard, Minister of Social Welfare, went to see Johnny Devlin perform at the Christchurch Town Hall, declaring at half-time, 'There’s nothing much wrong with rock’n’roll'.

New Zealand's studios lagged behind their counterparts in the Northern Hemisphere, and 1950s recording stars The Tumbleweeds recorded six of their hit albums in the living room of one of their band members.

New Zealand radio's conservative programming approach was increasingly challenged by young people in the 1960s. Radio Hauraki initially began life as a pirate radio station, broadcasting in international waters 50 miles (80 kilometres) offshore from Auckland in the Hauraki Gulf, a deliberate move that allowed them to circumnavigate restrictive broadcasting legislation and broadcast their own playlist. This in part spearheaded the way for the gradual deregulation of the radio industry. Towards the end of the 1960s radio stations like Radio Hauraki, and later Radio I, were playing exclusively rock and pop music to a teenage and young adult audience.

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