Dinah Lee
In the 1960s Dinah Lee was the most successful female singer in
her New Zealand homeland (and "next-door" in
Australia.) Born Diane Jacobs, she began appearing at her
father's nightclub in Christchurch at the age of 15. She was also
modelling by the time she went to Auckland.
Performing at a variety of clubs and coffee lounges, she
crossed paths with two of the hottest bands in town, Max Merritt
and the Meteors, and Ray Columbus and The Invaders. Her big break
came when the mother of Max Merritt's main singer died and Dinah
was asked to fill in for a tour.
Signed to influential local label Viking Records, Dinah entered
the recording studios with Max and the Meteors to record her own
versions of two soul/r&b songs she had heard on a Dee Dee
Sharp record - Huey 'Piano' Smith's Don't You Know Yokomo and
Jackie Wilson's Reet Petite.
Both songs became New Zealand number ones and Dinah became a
pop sensation, heads above the other female singers of the day -
Maria Dallas, Sandy Edmonds and Allison Durbin. She followed up
with a third big hit, a Jamaican ska song Do The Blue Beat.
Australia's king of rock Johnny O'Keefe recognised that there
was nothing like Dinah in Australia either and invited her to
appear on his Sing Sing Sing TV show. Performances
on the rest of Australia's pop TV shows followed. At the same
time as Ray Columbus and The Invaders became the first New
Zealanders to score a Number One record in Australia, Dinah was
top ten with Don't You Know Yokomo.
The Invaders' hit She's A Mod could easily have been
about Dinah Lee herself. The fashion sense she brought into her
pop career from her modelling days, made Dinah queen of the Mods,
Australia's most imitated female. Her next big hit was Reet
Petite, backed by Do The Blue Beat.
Dinah now divided her time between both sides of the Tasman. In
New Zealand she starred in two half-hour TV specials and had
another hit with Who Stole The Sugar?. In 1965 she moved
to London, to record with Chris Blackwell, founder of Island
Records and champion of Jamaican music (Millie, Bob Marley), and
appeared on shows like Thank Your Lucky Stars and Scene
At 6.30.
Dinah was also the only Australasian to appear on America's Shindig
show. On one of her two appearances she joined Ray Charles,
The Righteous Brothers and an unknown singer called Glen Campbell
for a rendition of Ray's Hit The Road Jack.
Dinah Lee spent the rest of the Sixties consolidating a
lucrative nightclub career. Based in Sydney, she still performs
today.
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