Annie expands

Music

Annie expands her horizons

By Atama Raganivatu

Western Samoa’s tourist board insist their country is “the best kept secret In the South Pacific” However, fans of Annie Crummer would argue that she has an equally strong claim to that description.

Although revered in New Zealand and several Pacific Island nations, the talented Rarotongan songstress is little known beyond our region. But that may well be about to change.

Every vocalist’s publicity agent will

maintain that their client was “bom to sing”. In Crummer’s case, though, it is undoubtedly, true. Her father, Will Crummer, is remembered today in the Cook Islands as the lead singer of Will Crummer and the Royal Rarotongans, a band which achieved much local fame in the late 1950 s and early 19605. Annie regards him, along with Stevie Wonder, as the major influence in her life.

Despite (according to Annie) sounding

like a cross between Pat Boone and Roy Orbison and being immensely popular in the Cooks, Will found it impossible to

earn a reasonable living from entertaining in his home islands. By 1963, life had become really tough financially and, as he now had a wife (Tania, a Tahitian) and four children to support, Will decided to emigrate to New Zealand where “proper jobs” were then plentiful.

Ironically, immediately upon arriving

at Auckland, Will leamt that a Hawaiian promoter was eager to offer him work as a cabaret singer in Honolulu. A few months later, he was entertaining tourists in the Aloha State. Unfortunately, Will found it impossible to settle in Hawaii and broke his contract to return to New Zealand and employment as a warehouseman.

Annie, the penultimate addition to a family of seven, was bom in 1965. It soon became obvious that she had inherited her father’s musical gifts and Will did his utmost to ensure those gifts would not be wasted. Annie was enrolled for a course of

singing lessons when eight.

Annie Crummer... laid-back, affable and unpretentious

The course lasted just one afternoon.

The instructor’s tastes lay in opera and Annie, after a spirited rendition of Donny and Marie Osmond’s I’m Leaving It All Up To You, was deemed “unsuitable for

further tutoring”.

Will, though, had greater faith in his daughter. He entered her in virtually every junior talent quest around Auckland and she won a large proportion of them. In 1975, Annie was invited to join a troupe of child entertainers managed by New Zealand entertainment legend Lou Clauson. For the next three years, all her holidays were spent with them performing songs and doing cabaret work, usually in

shopping malls.

Never did Annie have any doubts that she was destined to become a profession al singer and, without the slightest hesita tion, she left school when 15 to pursue her calling.

Amongst her earliest paid engage ments was a spot on a televised talent show called Threshold Promotion Company. The number she sang on this.

Once or Twice, was released as a single and entered New Zealand’s top 20 chart.

But, more importantly, the programme gained the attention of Murray Grindley, the nation’s leading writer and producer of

advertising jingles.

Grindley believed Annie possessed the ideal voice for his often under-rated art and this provided her main source of income for seven years. Even today, she continues providing the vocal backing for the occasional advertisement - the most notable of recent times being a national

lottery promotion.

The first taste of success in a more con ventional medium came in 1985. Annie was required to be one amongst several backing singers for a bunch of Otago University students who called them selves The Netherworld Dancing Toys when they released their single For Today.

Her powerful, soaring voice transformed a mediocre song into a chart topper.

Suddenly, Annie was inundated with offers from promoters, managers, entrepreneurs and various other show business movers and shakers, but found their sudden interest intimidating. “I was not ready for the responsibilities of fame,”

she recalls today. “I couldn’t return to the

relative obscurity of jingle-making quick

enough.”

Two more years passed before Annie again emerged from the shadows. With four friends, she formed an all-girls group with the intriguing name of When The Cat’s Away and their simplistic solution to New Zealand’s racial problems, entitled Melting Pot, dominated the Kiwi charts for several weeks, just as her delicious voice dominated the song itself.

The Cat’s Away were quick to exploit the popularity of what proved to be their only hit single and a tour of New Zealand by the female quintet grossed more money than any others featuring local artists.

Annie now felt the time was ripe to embark upon a solo career and she signed a contract with recording giant Warner Music that was intended to produce five albums within five years.

However, because of a dearth of appro priate tracks, only two have, in fact, been released over eight years.

As a live performer, though, Annie has gone from strength to strength, gaining an army of fans and providing the warm-up act for world-famous performers Jimmy Bames, Michael Jackson, Sting and k.d. lang on their Australasian tours.

The possessor of a strong, rich and beautiful voice, charismatic and versatile (she is equally comfortable with jazz, bal lads and soul), Annie, despite the serenity radiated away from the spotlight, gives a hint of vulnerability like a latter-day Janis Joplin, Edith Piaf or Judy Garland when

performing, and this projects an appeal

ingly enigmatic stage persona. Had she been British, American or even Australian, Annie would probably be an

international superstar now. However, the gifted Rarotongan has been handicapped by being based in a comparative show business backwater and not having access to top-quality songwriters. Annie’s first album, Language, sold a respectable num ber of copies and gained several New Zealand musical awards. However, it did not deliver the breakthrough she deserved.

The newly released Seventh Wave pro vides hope that it will be the vehicle that projects Annie to global stardom. The album gives testimony to her adoration of the Cook Islands. “I didn’t visit it for the first time until I was 21,” she often remi nisces. “As soon as I arrived, I rang my parents and told them, ‘Now I know exactly what you have been talking about all these years!.”’ I immediately fell in love with the place and I now regard it as home. My family have land there and it is my goal to be able to build homes for us all on Rarotonga some day. I certainly intend to retire there.”

The Cook Islands’ flavour of Seventh Wave is enhanced by log drums, church choirs, birdsong and reef sounds all recorded on Rarotonga, while each of the tracks was composed by Crummer and her co-writers with the Cooks in mind.

Interest in Polynesian pop music has never been higher in Europe, thanks to the success there of Niuean Pauly Fuemana, and Warner is hoping to take advantage of this when Annie tours the Old World early in 1997. Seventh Wave is soon to be released in Australia, South-East Asia and Canada. If it makes any significant impact in those countries, the all-important United States market will also be tackled.

Now 30 years of age, Annie is certain that she is mature enough to easily handle the problems of extensive fame.

But, one wonders just how important worldwide adulation really is to Annie, who admits that her handlers believe she lacks ambition. It is hard to imagine the laid-back, affable and unpretentious Rarotongan losing any sleep should the publics of London and Los Angeles resist the Crummer magic,' and true fame and fortune remains elusive.

If contentment were a measure of wealth, Annie would already be a million aire many times over. ■