Maria Dallas Mural on Villa Dalmacija
Words: Russell Brown
Photography: Blink Ltd and Supplied
Mural Artist: Margarita Vovna @margaritavovna
if you've been wondering about the new mural on the side of uptown's iconic Villa Dalmacija, be assured there's a story behind it. It's the storyof a young girl with a very big voice.
Marina Devcich - who would become known to the country as Maria Dallas - is part of New Zealand's Dalmatian community, which has its roots on the Dalmatian coast of what is now Croatia. Her father, Luka, was one of a group who came from the small Adriatic fishing town of Podgora at the beginning of the 20th century, for the backbreaking work of digging kauri gum.
He was eventually able to set up his own poultry farm in Morrinsville, where Marina was born the second-youngest of 13 children. Her first memory of singing for an audience was when she and her younger sister Amelia were encouraged by her uncles to sing the traditional Croatian song Ju Te San Se Zajubija' ('I Fell in Love With You') at one of their cards sessions.
"Amelia was very shy and I wasn't really that shy - a bit of a brat actually!" 80-year-old Marina chuckles down the line from her home in Brisbane. "They said, 'Oh, you're very good'. And then they gave us some money - but Dad didn't like that."
There was much more to come. One evening in 1962, 15-year- old Marina and her friend Isabel Leigh talked themselves onto stage to sing with a local group called the Beatniks. By general agreement, Marina had the stronger voice and, with Isabel's blessing, she became the singer with the band.
But her big break came in 1965, on a night when she wasn't on the bill. The Beatniks were the local backing band for a touring show that included chart-topper Dinah Lee - and band leader Lew Manson persuaded her to get up and sing in front of her idol.
Word soon got back to Auckland, where Viking Records co- founder Ron Dalton heard about the young brunette with the big voice. After some to-and-fro, Marina became a Viking artist. She took her first plane flight, to the HMV Studio in Wellington, in 1966.
"I thought I looked great," she recalls. "I'd bought this coat, on lay-by, and what looked like a Russian hat."
She got some surprising news when she landed.
"Ron was there and he said, 'Look, don't panic, but we've changed your name, and we've got the TV and the radio here, and we're saying that you're going to win the Loxene Golden Disc'. I hadn't even recorded! Anyhow, I went, 'Oh, okay. Right. Um, Maria Dallas, remember that'. Oh my God."
She wasn't the only Dalmatian/Croatian in the pop world: a West Auckland guitarist called Peter Posa had been recording for the rival Zodiac label. And they wouldn't be the last - the heritage now includes Peter and Margaret Urlich, Kevin and Milan Borich, and Tina Cross.
While Peter Posa credited singalongs within the community for getting him started with music, Marina reckons her music came from the Irish, on her mother's side: "Dad's side of the family couldn't sing". (There is of course, another Croatian-Irish singer you might have heard of: Ella Yelich-O'Connor, known to the world as Lorde.)
But back to that first studio session in Wellington. While Marina desperately wanted to sing country songs ("I loved Patsy Cline"), Dalton wanted her to record older material. The standoff was resolved when Jay Epae took a toilet break and came back with the basis of her first hit: 'Tumblin' Down'. They got it in two takes. "And then," says Marina. "It all sort of blew up."
Dalton's bold prediction that she would win the Loxene Golden Disc came to pass - and 'Tumblin' Down' made its way to America, and eventually to the legendary guitarist and producer Chet Atkins in Nashville.
"And Chet said, 'Well, bring her over and we'll record her'. Chet was really, really good to me. He got me on the Grand Ole Opry, which in those days was the biggest thing ever."
She recorded Maria Dallas in Nashville with Felton Jarvis, Elvis Presley's producer, in 1967. The album included 'Your Old Handyman', a tune by an aspiring young singer-songwriter called Dolly Parton.
"I was going to RCA one day and Dolly was passing by. She said, 'I heard you sing my song - you're the best one I've heard sing my song.' That was really lovely of her."
'Handyman' was a hit in Australia after she moved there, on the heels of another Nashville single, 'Ambush'. Brisbane eventually became her home and she continued to record and tour, including back home (where Morrinsville was usually on the itinerary). She even ran her own Brisbane nightclub, Club Dallas.
She retired in 2002 and Maria Dallas was Marina Devcich again. But she hasn't been forgotten. The Best of Maria Dallas reached number 2 in the NZ album charts in 2017 (it was only kept out of the top spot by Lorde's Melodrama) and the original 7" single of 'Ambush', with its fuzz guitar, is prized by "freakbeat" collectors. When news of the Villa Dalmacija mural reached her in Brisbane, Marina says, she was immediately keen to come over and see it in person. So when the accompanying mural of Peter Posa is completed, she'll be doing just that.
"I'm so happy about it."
Ironically, there could have been one other connection to Uptown. Unlike Peter Posa, she never recorded at Viking-Mascot Studios, which stood at 135 Newton Road. Instead, she went to Nashville, recorded with the man who produced Elvis, and met Dolly Parton.
Uptown will gracefully cede to Nashville on that one.
