Rod MacKinnon


For budding folk musician Rod MacKinnon Wellington’s Monde Marie café was an intoxicating place. From his arrival from the West Coast in 1962 at the age of nineteen, the Monde Marie was to be like a second home for him for the next five years.

MacKinnon: “As you came off Majoribanks Street a huge mosaic inspired by the Jimmie Rodgers song ‘Woman From Liberia’ greeted you. Inside, Marie had created the nearest New Zealand had to a bohemian French café. A hubbub of conversation and thick smoke filled the air. With no room for a stage, musicians perched on tables, armrests, anywhere you could squeeze in really. There was no separation between audience and performer. Marie was a larger than life character who lorded it over her domain, employing a team of attractive, smart waitresses and not stepping back if trouble brewed. If Marie felt the noise was drowning out the music a sharp retort of ‘shut-up – he’s singing’ cut the air.”

Rod McKinnon: a mid-60s HMV publicity portrait by Spencer Digby.
Photo credit: Ken Cooper collection
Front cover of the 1965 LP Folk Concert Down Under (HMV MCLP 6205). Traditional folk interpreted by Val Murphy, Rod MacKinnon, Arthur Toms, Dave Whaley, Don King, the Festival Singers, Dave Corn, and John, Geoff and Linda (John Lander, Geoff Hargreaves, and Linda Sacklin).
Photo credit: Ross Hawkes
Josh White and Judy Collins at Monde Marie, 1965 - in between them is Wellington folk singer Rod MacKinnon. 
Photo credit: Jane Seddon collection
Folk concert flyer, Wellington Concert Chamber, 8 December 1966, featuring Rod MacKinnon, Max Winnie, Jae Renaut, Lynn Howie, Dave Jordan, Lynne & Helen Gifford, The Blues Project, Linda Sacklin accompanied by Craig Wrightson, Pauline Roberts. 
Photo credit: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, Eph-A-MUSIC-WFC-1966-01
"Folk concert down under". An evening with Rod MacKinnon, Val Murphy and other leading folk performers, Wellington, 1965. 
Photo credit: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z. ref Eph-A-MUSIC-WFC-1965-01
Rod MacKinnon set list from the Balladeer, 1966
Photo credit: Mary Fyfe collection
Flyer for Folk Concert 3, Wellington Concert Chamber, 30 July 1966, with Rod MacKinnon, Jae Renaut, Jim Delahunty, Lynne Gifford, Frank Fyfe, and from Palmerston North, Jo Rose and Dave Jordan. 
Photo credit: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, Eph-B-MUSIC-WFC-1966-01
Musicians at the Monde Marie, Wellington, 1960s (L-R): Rod MacKinnon, Lee West, Dave Hollis
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