Eugene Havenga
CONCEPTS & PRODUCTIONS est 1970
Eugene Havenga was born in Port Elizabeth in 1949, and has been in the professional music business since 1968, and has just celebrated 56 years in the music industry. He arrived in Johannesburg in 1970 and joined the Band “Stonecast Feather”, who became “PROUDFOOT “in 1973, with their subsequent hit “DELTA QUEEN”.
Because of Eugene’s features and long hair the record company RPM formed a band with him and decided to call it PROUDFOOT, from which the hit DELTA QUEEN was formed. From the time he arrived in Johannesburg, Eugene was immediately utilized by many music producers for various projects because of his vocal skill and unique 4 octave range. One of the producers that he worked with was Mutt Lange, who later married Shania Twain.
Five years later Eugene joined the Julian Laxton Band, and together they clocked up 2 hits in 1976 namely “BLUE WATER” and “CELEBRATE THE RAIN”. Eugene also ventured into country music and clocked up 2 hits namely “GREAT WALL OF CHINA” AND “COUNTRY GOLD”.
In the 70s, it was almost impossible to identify an Afrikaner with Rock Music, let alone becoming one of the countries leading singers in various styles of music. Eugene became a specialist singer doing many sessions for numerous singers, and even using his voice to record under the name of other bands for national release.
Amongst all the singers that Eugene had worked with, his favourite was Cora Marie, who passed away from cancer many years ago. He had worked with Bles Bridges, Johan Stemmet, Laurika Rauch, Min Shaw, Lance James, Clive Bruce, Cupido, Sonja Heroldt and others, the list is too exhaustive to mention.
Eugene, along with other music producers, was one of the founder members of TV4, specializing in the very popular series of music shows paying tribute to American and British bands, that we all admired from the 60’s. These television shows became the mainstay of the music industry in South Africa, and as a consequence played a leading role in shaping the SA music industry for future singers and musicians to follow.
Eugene can be seen in the adjacent brochure performing with Dennis East, Bobby Louw Jenna Lessing, using the top session musicians of the era like Kevin Kruger on drums,
Denny Lalouette on bass, Johan Laas on keyboards, Mauritz Lotz on lead guitar and Mike Fuller on sax.
The sponsorship support of these music programs made it possible to entertain audiences for many years around the country. The SABC was always inundated with fan mail placing requests for appearances at various venues, as well as information on shows that the public would like to see.
TV4 had made its mark and was a huge success.
Eugene featured prodigiously in Country Music in the 80’s and here he is seen as Bill McCoy (centre) in the country musical, Sunset Saloon. This show delivered 2 hits from the album, namely “GREAT WALL OF CHINA” and “COUNTRY GOLD”.
He also featured in the then fledgling Afrikaans market, bravely releasing his first Afrikaans Rock album called
“DIE VEELSYDIGE EUGENE HAVENGA” (pic on right).
Eugene’s album was banned on Radio Hoeveld by Edwill van Aarde for singing “Rock” music, who claimed that music like this does not belong on radio. He later apologised.
Eugene Havenga also acted the part of “FRECKLES” in the popular children’s series on SABC called “PUMPKIN PATCH”.
Not only did he sing all the “FRECKLES” parts including harmonies and arrangement, but he also did all the recording as well. “PUMPKIN PATCH” was the longest running children’s show in South Africa at the time, reaching a transmission frequency of 5 days a week for
8 years.
Eugene has had an extensive and full music career, and has also had the privilege of working with international stars like Wilson Pickett, bass player Abe Laboriel, percussion player Alex Acuna, saxophonist/flautist Justo Almario, and he also did lead vocals for Rick Wakeman from “YES” band, in his Rock musical, “JOURNEY
TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH”.
Eugene is still currently active, composing original songs, and doing the entire production from recording, music instrumentation, lead vocals and harmonies.
Eugene and Cora Marie were
regular performers in shows
together around the country, and one of the most memorable TV show’s was that filmed at the Cango Caves in Oudshoorn.
Eugene also composed songs for Cora, and was a backup singer and vocal producer on every song that Cora Marie recorded for years. It is no wonder that a young writer named Shaun Mynhardt decided to do an autobiography of Cora.
In his book, “GEE HAAR N ROOS”, Shuan refers to all the show experiences that Cora had with Eugene Havenga, as well as with all the other singers that she had worked with over the years.
SHOW STAGING
Eugene had a natural flair for staging shows, no matter what the content or concept. He was also excellent at procuring sponsors and tying up media
partnerships in support of each show that he had staged.
On the right are newspaper clips of the various shows that he had staged at the Boardwalk Casino in Port Elizabeth and various other venues.
Eugene would also play guitar in most of the shows as he was a formidable player who loved doing double leads on specially chosen songs, like “Reeling In The Years” by Steely Dan.
The newspaper clips are from the shows “Flight Of The Eagle”, “Bad Moon Rising” and “Legendz Of Rock”.
The Evening Post in Port Elizabeth elaborated that these were the best shows ever to be staged in PE because of their vocal, harmony and music
excellence, which took months of rehearsal.
Presidential Peace Handover
Eugene Havenga played a leading role in the handing over of a peace album specially recorded as a message of peace and goodwill prior to the transition to majority rule in South Africa. Cora Marie was the motivation behind the concept and was well received by President FW de Klerk.
They all had lunch together at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, and although this may seem insignificant, history was made that day as it was the last time that the Afrikaans culture would meet under this structure. From left to right are: Sonja Heroldt, Eugene Havenga, Mariekie ( President de Klerks wife), President FW de Klerk, Cora Marie and Cupido.
Although primarily a Rock singer for many years, Eugene had also delved into many different styles of music like Ballads, Country, Commercial, Soul, Blues etc.
He was always interested in Jazz, and listening to Chick Correa, Shakatak, Miles Davis, Al Jarreau, Earl Klugh, Lee Ritenour, Jacko Pistorius and a host of other music masters, was a must for every musician and singer in South Africa, if you wanted to gain music intellect from abroad with the idea of studying this genre and one day to compose songs himself.
This led to Eugene staging “Latino Ritmo”, using the best Jazz players in South Africa, and not surprisingly also turned out to be the top Jazz show ever staged in this country. The audience was made up of 80% musicians who knew that such a line-up of great musicians and singers could only deliver a fantastic show, and a fantastic show it was.
Eugene sang songs like “Spain” by Al Jarreau in the show, and this intricate jazz vocal piece truly exhibited vocal gymnastics and range that few singers are capable of doing. When a crowd of people really go nuts during a show, mostly musicians, then one can comfortably rest in the fact that the ultimate dream had been achieved.
An exceptional musician of international standard in Latino Ritmo, was Travis Johnston, who had people amazed by his drumming and percussion ability and technique.
