“It started in 1956, sitting on the lawn outside Veronia’s place just banging round on kerosene tins and singing.” That’s how Temepara (Temple) Morehu describes the formation of The Sunbeams, a children’s vocal sextet from the Ngāti Whātua village at Ōrākei who became a fixture of the Māori Community Centre during the 1950s and early 60s.
The young Sunbeams receive a prize from Lou Clauson, c.1960. - Lou Clauson Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Ref: PA1-4-192-17-03
Sitting in a room at the Ngāti Whātua Whai Rawa building beside Ōrakei Marae, Temple, his cousin Maurice Watene, and Billy Akarana, who grew up at the centre, looked back on those days 70 years ago.
When the band started all the members were under 10, with Maurice the youngest at six or seven.
Temepara: “It was Maurice and his brothers Paul and Winiata, cousins Lennie and Simon Thompson, Ray Ponui Dixon and anyone else that Uncle Knocky [Maurice’s dad Jim Watene] wanted. On a Saturday afternoon if we were getting ready to go somewhere and there weren’t six, he’d look out the window and say ‘Riki, come up and try on the pants. You’re six.’ There was always someone like Charlie Tumahai to fill in.”
Harry: “I remember down at the Town Hall Uncle Knocky said to me, ‘come over here – you’ve got the right pants, get on the stage.’ ”
In 1956 Watene entered The Sunbeams for the first time in a talent quest at the Māori Community Centre.
Harry: “I still remember the compere.”
Temepara: “Uncle Ben Broughton. He used to run onto the stage and slide and we waited 20 years for him to fall over and he never fell over once.”
Harry: “He had a laugh and a personality that would make you think, ‘Peter Sinclair who?’ ”
“Uncle Knocky said to me, ‘come over here – you’ve got the right pants, get on the stage!’ ”
Maurice: “In those days we were in the Māori Community Centre all the time. On Sunday, in the daytime we always thought we went to the centre to go to the swings over on the corner, but they had church service. It was mostly Rātana because [they] would jump on first.”
Temepara: “People used to dance on a Friday and Saturday and on Sunday there was the talent quest. We were at the centre most Sunday nights, but on Saturday we sang professionally. Agents like Benny Levin, Mary Fuller, Gracie Bidois, Eddie Hegan used to give us gigs.
“When we started, we used to sing Frankie Lymon songs. Winiata had a voice like Frankie Lymon – doo wop bom bon. I show my grandchildren Elvis Presley singing on YouTube, ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, singing bop bop ba bop – I say ‘that was us, we did those kinds of things in songs, we sang in the background, waved our arms, stepped forward and back.”
Maurice: “We had the privilege and pleasure to play with people like The Keil Isles, the Hi Fives, Toni Williams before the Tremellos, [Johnny] Devlin.”
Newspapers of the time show The Sunbeams appearing regularly not only at the centre but winning the talent quest at the Gandhi Hall – on Victoria St West, a short walk from the Māori Community Centre – and supporting major acts and events.
In March 1959 they’re on the bill for Benny Levin’s Rocka Māori rock’n’roll stageshow at the Auckland Town Hall with Rama White (billed as “16 stone of rock’n’roll” and “New Zealand’s Sophie Tucker”), The Keil Isles, pianist Heke Kawene, the Silhouettes and Flo Castle, “Yma Sumac of the Māori race”.
The Sunbeams reminisce, 2025 (L-R): Maurice Watene, Temepara Morehu, and Harry Akarana. - Adam Gifford
The remaining Sunbeams remember an earlier Town Hall appearance.
Temepara: “It was when we were singing for the first time in the Town Hall. Our mothers had made us white pants, white shirt, big cummerbund. Our mums were the backbone of the centre.”
Maurice: “Temple was chasing me round the car, we were in our stage clothes, and I fell over and had a mud patch on my knee, and his mother panicked and said ‘take those off,’ and she was trying to clean it out – it was the sorriest thing I did to his mother.”
Temepara: “Howard Morrison came to the centre in 1958 for the talent quest. In the final they won £100, we won a La Gloria record player machine. Over the years I used to wag Howard: ‘We’ve still got that radiogram – where’s your hundy?”
Maurice: “People said we were ripped off but the Howard Morrison Quartet were so professional. We did well to come second. The comedy was professional, the dress was professional, the vocals were professional. Laurie [Morrison] was still in the group then.”
Temepara: “I went to a birthday in Rotorua five years ago. None of the hat and stick brigade came so I stood up and I was talking about this time in 1958 when Howard was in this talent quest. When it finished there these people our age came up and [prominent Ngāti Rangiwewehi elder] Trevor Maxwell said ‘that’s where I remember you from, singing at the centre’. So we sang until 1960 and then we became a band. I played the piano. We all had an instrument. We played at the Māori Community Centre, and sang if needed on Saturday nights if uncle got us work.
“You hear ‘Guitar Boogie’ – Maurice’s brother Paul could play it when he was 10. People were stunned. His dad too played fiddle, steel guitar and guitar. He had a beautiful voice.”
Among the many members of the Sunbeams were Maurice Watene and Charlie Tumahai (future members of Herbs), and the Watene and Rivers brothers (future members of the Tikiwis). - Lou Clauson Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Ref: PA1-f-192-15-17
In 1961 The Sunbeams went to New Caledonia in 1961 for a two-week club engagement. Maurice: “Henry Tatana, who later played league for St George, was on sax.”
That year they also did a national tour from Kaitaia to Invercargill with Joe Brown’s Search for the Stars talent quest.
By 1965 the Sunbeams, by then the three Watene brothers along with Philip and David Rivers, decided to try their luck in Australia.
Maurice: “I had my 15th birthday on the plane and when we landed my age was 18 so we could play all the clubs.
“We arrive in Aussie, so we’re in King’s Cross, and we thought we’ll go and have a feed of fish and chips. As we’re coming out of the shop Tui Teka drives past in this red Fairlane convertible and he sees us – every Māori knew this young Māori band was coming over so he had been looking for us – he sees us and says, ‘hey boys, get in the car.’
“We couldn’t get over it, this flash car, TV in the back seat, all the mod cons. He took us to Bondi to this club full of Māori telling us what not to do, ‘don’t do this’. Of course we ended up doing it. That’s was how it was, the community, Māori for Māori.”
Tui Teka renamed the band the Tikiwis and the boys found work in Sydney’s bars and clubs, including a residency in Tiki Village, a nightclub in the basement of the Copenhagen Hotel (now the Devere) on McLeay St just down from King’s Cross, which was also home to the Quin Tikis for a spell.
By 1967 Maurice was feeling homesick. “Mum and Dad had come over for Christmas and spent a week with us. We go to the airport and straight away I’m crying. I go ‘I’ve got to go home.’ The order went through from my brothers, ‘don’t give him any money.’ So I sold my sax and came home. I get on the phone at the airport:
“Hey Dad.”
“Son how are, what you doing?”
“Waiting for you to come pick me up.”
“I couldn’t handle it, had to come home to Mum.”
The Tikiwis performing at the Logan Park Motor Hotel, Auckland, in October 1967. In January 1968 they arrived in Vietnam for a six-month tour. From left: Philip Rivers, Paul Watene, Helene Johnston, David Rivers and Winiata (Wini) Watene. - Rykenberg, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1269-19671031-07
The remaining Sunbeams/ Tikiwis stayed on working the clubs and hotels and ended up touring army bases in Vietnam, where Harry Akuhata caught up with them.
He joined the army in 1966 after being arrested at the Picasso nightclub – a case of mistaken identity, he says – and served three tours in Vietnam and Malaysia before getting a job in Melbourne, where he lived for 47 years.
Harry: We were sitting down the back with the Yanks, I was sitting down there, had a bong, and then I said ‘that sounds like home,’ because before they played they were always tuning up.
Someone said, ‘it’s a Māori band.’ I couldn’t see so I borrowed the glasses from a Yank and ‘holy hell. It’s Wini and them.’
“My Colonel says ‘where are you going.’ I said ‘they’re my cousins’ and he said ‘Yeah, you Māori got cousins everywhere.’
“I got close to the stage and my 2IC came along, said, ‘boss we’ve got to go on fire mission’. I got their tour schedule and met up with them in Saigon, that was when Saigon was under fire. They didn’t get attacked, it was just dropping mortars around the city. I’ve never seen Māoris turn so white. They said ‘what do we do?’ I said ‘hide under the bed.’ ‘What happens when they come in the door?’ ‘That’s your problem.’
“I got my 45, took out the magazine and gave it to Wini, ‘He said what’s that for?’ ‘Just in case they come in the door. You’ll be alright, nothing will happen,’ – because I still had the mag.”
The Soundells at The Downtown Club, Wellington, 1966 (L-R): Warren Potter, Malcolm Hayman, Leo George, and Ria Kerekere. - Jackie Matthews Collection
Back in Auckland Ria Kerekere, who Maurice had met in Australia, asked Maurice to replace him in The Soundells, a Wellington band which had shifted north for a residency at Phil Warren’s Oriental Ballroom.
When the Tikiwis came back home after Vietnam for a short New Zealand tour in 1968, there was a reorganisation.
Paul and Winiata dropped out of the band and joined Maurice in The Soundells, replacing members who were heading back to Wellington to rejoin band founder Malcolm Hayman in Quincy Conserve.
Another Soundell, Garth Wall, went back to Australia with the Rivers brothers. That’s the lineup that made the T-Kiwis album for Australian label Violets Holiday, treasured by crate diggers for its funky cover of the Sly and the Family Stone hit ‘You Can Make it if You Try’.
The Watene version of the Soundells eventually made their way to Australia and stayed for a few years before breaking up.
Maurice came back to Australia and hooked up with Tama Renata. “There was a lot of work up here in clubs and pubs. There was no need to go anywhere else.”
In the 1980s Maurice joined his cousins in Herbs in time for the recording ‘French Letter’, and continued to add his horn to the band’s sound through the decade.