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Murray Charteris — pedal steel guitar player with The Beachcombers .....
Having released a single under his own name and an album as a member of The Beachcombers with his wife Averill and brother Logan, Murray Charteris's progression from Hawaiian steel guitar to country pedal steel guitar was a natural one. Just months after its 1959 American release, the Santo and Johnny steel guitar instrumental Sleep Walk was released by Charteris with backing by The Trisonics (The Trisonic Beat) on the Peak label. Three years later, The Beachcombers released a single on the Fidelity label, and in 1963 the album South Seas Serenade on HMV.
Murray Charteris playing a Fender Stringmaster through a Fender rig.
By the later 1960s, Murray, Logan and Averill Charteris were in country bands in Christchurch that came to the attention of ambitious record man Hoghton Hughes. Producer Hughes first used Murray Charteris as a steel guitarist on Brendan Dugan’s debut album Country’s Greatest in 1967.
That was followed by a succession of sessions for Hughes’ Master and Music World labels backing the likes of Danny McGirr, Max McCauley, Patricia Lennon and Suzanne Prentice on her first few LPs. Often Charteris was credited as musical arranger while the band was billed as The Country Troubadours, The Last Exit or Santa Fe.
In 1979, Averill Charteris & Santa Fe released the album Truck Drivin’ Woman on Music World, but Averill quit playing live in the mid-1980s when her and Murray’s daughter Susan was about seven. The little girl would lovingly refer to her father’s Emmons pedal steel as her brother because of all the attention he gave it. Murray Charteris passed away in 2009 |
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