The Golden Guitarist

One of the most gifted players of his generation, Peter Posa found fame thanks to one magical tune.

- Graham Reid

Peter Posa, who died on February 3, aged 77, was one of our most successful, if unlikely, entertainers of the volatile, increasingly hirsute 60s. Against emerging and vibrant Kiwi pop and rock of that decade, Posa was an anomaly.

He didn’t sing, often performed sitting down, was clean-cut and eschewed the changing fashions of that period for conservative, smart-casual attire.

Guitarist Peter Posa – born in West Auckland – was a man out of time.

But he was a remarkably adept performer whose repertoire covered pop, Spanish music, gospel, jazz, Mori and Pacific tunes, Scottish and Irish songs and, of course, the pop-country crossover hit that gave him a foothold: his mega-selling The White Rabbit, an exceptional onetake, two-minute tune in which his guitar sound shimmered and glistened. It made his name and the subsequent White Rabbit album sold about 200,000 copies.