This influential New Zealand pub rock and blues band was formed in Auckland in July 1974 by English-born singer and guitarist Hammond Gamble.
Starting out as a three-piece blues band at the Windsor, they became a cult act within weeks among Auckland’s blues’n’booze freaks, which is how Kim Fowley discovered them.
Fowley produced their 1978 self-titled debut album for WEA, which won Album of the Year at the 1979 NZ Music Awards, where the band also picked up Most Promising Group.
Unfortunately, the hoped-for breakthrough and international success failed to materialise, and after a brief flirtation with the bright lights, a well-received four-week tour of Australia, and some superb support slots with Talking Heads and Fleetwood Mac, the band retreated back into the hard slog and gruelling grind as one of the country’s hardest-working top live drawcards, playing regularly at the Gluepot Tavern in Auckland.
With Auckland tightly in the grip of New Wave, the group’s continuing affair with the blues made the band something of an anachronism, as if they had nothing to offer the city’s teenagers.
They severed the Fowley link for their 1980 album, Battleground of Fun, turning to Bruce Lynch to produce the record.
They survived multiple lineup changes (18 musicians in all) and contributed several tracks to the soundtrack of the New Zealand film Goodbye Pork Pie, before calling it a day in 1980.
Gamble formed the Hammond Gamble Band and released several albums. Joe Cocker recorded his song If You’ve Got Love, Give Me Some.
Hammond Gamble
Vocals, guitar Mike Caen
Guitar, vocals Andy MacDonald
Bass, vocals Chris Murray
Guitar Stuart Pearce
Keyboards, vocals Malcolm McCallum
Bass Jim Lawrie
Drums Walter Ormsby
Drums Steve Butler Drums Noel Christian
Drums Brent Eccles
Drums Peter Cuddihy
Bass Andrew Kay
Keyboards
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They severed the Fowley link for their 1980 album, Battleground of Fun, turning to Bruce Lynch to produce the record.
