Jack Grace

Mirror image

He reckons the reason for the show’s success is that its setting is a mirror image of so many other whanau homes of the time.

“I really, really knew here was a story inside that whole street I grew up on. It is the story of lives, the lives of lots of people, not just my family. 

“It [Scott Avenue] was an enclave of Maoridom. A lot of the people in the street and in the Owhata area were there because we were all part of the same tribal and iwi affiliations. They came from Ngati Kahungunu, the East Coast, resettling in Rotorua.

“We had kind of migrated into one area, lived together, grew up together. We were always in and out of each other’s homes so it’s no wonder we were all so close.” 

Booze and bookies

These were homes where hard-working blokes let off steam and partied, partied, and partied some more.

Bear in mind much of this time frame belongs to the era of six o’clock closing, pre-dating the big booze barns that followed. It’s often said it was these that led to the decline in the party scene the show recreates. Jack and his mates’ boyhood homes were places where music was paramount and played at full throttle.

They were where sly groggers and bookies did roaring trades, the Waikato Green flowed, Best Bets was tucked in almost every bloke’s back pocket and the mums and aunties sang, danced, smoked, giggled and gossiped. To kids like Jack and his cohort it was where whanau warmth embraced them.

He dipped into his memories of this down-home “ordinariness” and the genuine characters to script this slide-splitting show.

8 Scott Ave The Musical bore the tagline “As a whanau we didn’t have much but when we sang we had everything.”

And they did.

Scrapping for seats

The show’s first staging was at the Blue Baths in the November of Jack’s homecoming year. It was a sellout; there were scraps to secure seats.

Repeat performances demanded bigger venues. Again the “house full” signs were out. That was until Covid struck and the entertainment sector went into its own extended lockdown.

8 Scott Avenue- The Musical could have faded into the shadowy repository where performances past lie, but its popular appeal lived on.

With encores still echoing, it was a no-brainer that theproduction should be reprised to celebrate the opening in February of the multi-million dollar upgraded Sir Howard Morrison Centre.

Cue the birth of 8 Scott Ave -  The Sequel.

The week-long season, matinees included, played to packed houses – yet again.

It was back on the boards in August, showcased in shortened form at Dancing for Hospice.

Throughout the show’s various incarnations Jack’s drawn performers, young and not so young, from the rich pickings of this city’s entertainment elite.

Like him, several of the more mature cast members had been inspired or nurtured by Sir Howard.

Jack or David?

For the inside story of this city’s Mr Entertainment the obvious person to tell it is the man himself.

But first it needs to be said that Jack Grace is not the type to talk himself up. He’s no good at it, in fact he’s very bad at it, but when it comes to laughter the tune changes.

It’s as natural to him as breathing, singing or playing the guitar.

Jack’s laugh isn’t some cultivated chuckle, it’s the real deal deep-from-the-gut guffaw.

The first comes when he tells us Jack isn’t his given name, that’s David.

“I was bought up by my grandparents. My koro called all his grandsons Jack so at 8 Scott Avenue it was my ‘inside’ name. Once I walked out the door I went back to being David.”

He was David out in the wide world but reverted to Jack when he came back to settle permanently.

“It was to honour my koro. I went back to Jack when he passed away. He was an awesome grandfather.”

Toss up - rugby or music?  

Jack was at Rotorua Intermediate when his singing voice was “discovered”, not by talent scouts but by his teachers.

“Derek Morrison, his sister the beautiful Miss Nari Morrison – later she became Mrs Ngati – Tere Rei, Charlie Berryman ...”

The names roll off his tongue. He’s never forgotten those who spotted his potential to entertain.

“They gave me my first shot at it, put me up the front. When manuhiri (visitors) came to school I was called out of class to sing to them. I sung my way through forms one and two.”

At Lakes High he had to choose between sport and music.

“Fortunately or unfortunately I shared games of rugby with a lot of Rotorua kids who were very, very good at it. People like Steve McDowell and Ronnie Preston, so I kind of pursued music by default – or was it design, or kind of both?”

Jack’s own schoolboy rugby was pretty darn good too.

He played in the Bay of Plenty secondary schools’ team, the Bay of Plenty under 18s and under 21s.

But he was a kid with a conscience.

“I knew as a whanau we couldn’t afford the cost of me pursuing rugby at that time.

I was pretty lucky I had some awesome people like the local butcher Jim Bennett who took me to matches, bought me jerseys, because we didn’t have the money to buy them ourselves.”

It bothered him big time.

“One day I wrote a letter purportedly from my grandmother. It said ‘Unfortunately David can’t play rugby any more’. That was it.

“It was to the Bay of Plenty Rugby Union. They must have looked at that letter and known a kid had written it but that’s how I followed music by default.

“Here I am so many years later and still in the music game; it’s been music all the way.”

Meat works, crossing the Tasman

At 15 “and a snotty-nosed kid” he went to work in a meat processing plant.

“It was the Consolidated Traders wild game place down on Pururu Street.

“I sung my heart out there, everybody gave me the room to do it.”

He joined his first band.

“It was My Father’s Moustache. Dave Howe the farrier ran it. It was just a little gig band. There were a lot of really good bands and musos like Joe Daniels around at that time. We didn’t come close to them.”

Since their Rotorua Intermediate days Jack and Jeana Brooke had been mates.

“At Lakes High we started going around together – wahoo. She went on to become a midwife.”

Jack was 17 when they headed for Australia. He picked up gigs across the states before scoring his dream job. It was as entertainment manager at the upmarket Magnetic Island resort in Queensland.

“It was pretty much like Fantasy Island on TV.”

The couple had married in Townsville and the first of their four daughters was born there.

Television talent show winner

The Graces returned to New Zealand in 1982 with their future uncertain.

But soon after they settled in Auckland David Grace (as he still was) cracked the big time.

“I saw this newspaper ad promoting the Stars in their Eyes competition. I thought ‘Oooh, I’ll have a crack at that’ and blow me, I won it singing Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters.”

One of the judges was Elaine Hegan of the Hegan Entertainment Agency. She signed him up on the spot.

“Elaine and her husband Eddie had all the big guns on their books: Billy T, Ray Wolfe, Tina Cross, the Yandall Sisters, then a little Maori boy from Owhata turned up …

“Elaine really taught me the art of performing.

“She also taught me to stay in my lane, sing the songs right for my voice … the crooner style. It really brought out the Maori in me.”

Stars in their Eyes wasn’t his only telly quest triumph.

A decade after winning it he took out the top spot in the Ian Fraser-hosted Showcase.

Between times he spent a lot of years on stage at Sky City, then more years as entertainment manager at Auckland’s Sheraton hotel.

There was a return to Oz but not for long. The Graces came back to New Zealand for the sake of their daughters’ education.

“It was a good move. They’re all teachers now, wahoo. Try having a discussion when they’re all together in this house. Well, you can’t.”

One burger – four kids

“Back in the day when they were kids we had a ’72 V-Dub Beetle. It was before you had to have seat belts. They’d be three kids squashed in the back seat and one lying across the back.

“I’d go to a gig hoping to get enough dollars to buy gas to get home again.

“I’d drive into Maccas, buy a burger and ask for a knife to cut it into four to feed them. Our kids still talk about getting a quarter each of a McHappy burger. It’s something that’s pretty humbling for them.”

The Grace whanau moved around, Jack going where the work was.

“We were like the Beverley Hillbillies, all packed in with our belongings jammed onto a trailer.

“At one stage I thought I’d retire to Raglan but my music career wouldn’t let me.

“We used to spend holidays there with the kids. I thought I’d do a bit of surfing but I’m one of those guys who gets in everyone else’s way. I’m a clumsy surfer.”

The Hamilton Jazz Club enticed him back to dry land. He became its vice-president, then president.

Tragedy, future projects

When he did seriously contemplate slowing down a tad it was no contest where he’d come to roost - Rotorua . . . but of course.

“Rewa Ututaonga was directing Lakeside that year [2019]. She told me to get back on stage. I did and realised my brand was still alive in me.”

Tragedy blighted Jack’s homecoming His trainee teacher son-in-law, Whitinga Harris, was diagnosed with cancer and urgently needed treatment. That came with a $100,000 price tag. Jack launched a fundraising drive “From here to Christchurch”.

“Unfortunately it was too late to save him. The money’s now in trust for his two sons.”

New works, new direction

In the aftermath of Whitinga’s death Jack began work on 8 Scott Ave -  The Musical.

He’s adamant it won’t be a one-hit wonder. “There are some other things coming down the creative pathway. One deals with being transgender.

“I’m a bit of a dinosaur about genders and the pronouns for them, but I have grandchildren who follow this type of community culture.”

A second work deals with an equally contentious issue – youth suicide.

“These stories are a very intentional, a deliberate change of lens after 8 Scott Avenue. I have had to say to the aunties ‘Sorry girls, you are not in these’. This is a whole new pathway for me.”

Jack acknowledges such a quantum content shift has taken courage.

“I have learnt that in an industry like the arts you need courage to be able to bring what is important to the creative landscape.

“I think as long as you are courageous everything else aligns itself with that courage.

“In my 62 years on this planet I have learned what it is to be courageous.

“More than anything else it takes courage to stand up for what you believe in, to speak your truth, to speak what is the truth.”

Living back east

It’s stating the obvious to say the Grace whanau settled back on the east side of town.

“Where else would we go? I still get goosebumps when I pass Pak `n` Save heading eastside. It’s all to do with my growing up here and the fond memories of people and moments.

“I reflect on a daily basis where things were when I was growing up; Kilwels, Geanys. Mills Tui, Waldmans. They are still very much alive in the history of these [eastside] whanau.

“Yes, it has changed but for us it remains the same.”