Peter Posa And His Golden Guitar - The White Rabbit (1963)

(Bill Ivory - Graham Rosling)
 New Zealand
Original version
#17 Sydney #5 Melbourne #8 Brisbane #? NZ*

Hit instrumental single on Viking (NZ), also released on W&G in Australia and on Interphon (1964) in the USA.

Peta Posa (1941-2019) was from Henderson, in western Auckland, where his Yugoslav immigrant parents were wine growers. He was a star in New Zealand, a prolific and popular instrumental guitarist whose earliest influences were 40s-50s country artists and the electric guitar innovator Les Paul.

Prolific NZ lyricist Sam Freedman (1911-2008) later wrote lyrics for The White Rabbit that were published in a lyrics booklet, Peta Posa: His Greatest Hits (1965), along with five other Peter Posa tracks. I haven’t found any evidence that a vocal version was ever recorded, apart from the version in Danish listed below.

* National charts were not available in New Zealand at this time, apart from some magazine lists that probably did not reflect actual popularity or sales. The White Rabbit was clearly a popular record, even if we don’t have any hard figures.

References, further reading: 1. Peter Posa profiles at Audio Culture and Bruce Sergent’s NZ music site. 2. “Peter Posa: hostage to the beat” by Chris Bourke at Audio Culture. 3. PeterPosa.com. 4. “RIP Sam Freedman: Unsung Songwriter Signs Off”, stuff.co.nz, 18 June 2008.