Story: Nightclubs

The Crystal Palace (shown here in 1986) was one of Auckland's busiest clubs in the 1930s, drawing crowds to hear Epi Shalfoon and the Melody Boys – a band that acted as a training ground for many Auckland musicians. The Crystal Palace was revived in the 1950s by promoter Phil Warren, known as the ‘king of clubland’, who set up clubs, a touring circuit and a record label in the 1950s and 1960s. He can be heard in this interview talking about opening the Crystal Palace and the synergy between recording and nightclubs.

Transcript

Interviewer: I want you to tell us about the fifties, the late fifties, the club's Crystal Palace which I think you opened in June 1958?

Well, that's right. And we opened it with a very big ad that said, welcome to Sabrina, and Sabrina was a sort of Jane Mansfield / Marilyn Monroe lady with very large cleavage that was all in the newspapers. She was the sort of the page three girl of the fifties. And she was coming here for some concert and of course the ad read as though she was coming to the Crystal Palace. And of course we had an enormous, enormous turnout and that was the start of really a change around in the entertainment industry in New Zealand in '58, '57, '58 with different things being done and American expresso coffee being introduced and coloured lights and mirror balls and black ceilings with white string across them. None of that had been done before. And so there was a major change came upon the scene but of course it was at that time that of course I'd started the record company too so there were these records, there were the synergies between the record companies and the artists and the clubs that we operate.