Description Comments

Success Due Hip Singles

Description: The information for this image was taken for a story that ran in The Manawatu Evening Standard on 19th January 1983.

"It has been predicted Hip Singles will be the band to watch in 1983. If and when success comes to the group it won't be before time for frontman Dick Driver. Driver has had his share of hard times in recent years. Last year was something of a mixture for Hip Singles. It began tragically for Driver with the death of a member of the group's road crew (who was also a good friend of his).

Driver confesses he then came close to chucking in the music business. But January and February he toured the South Island with the Dick Driver Dance band, and his confidence and enthusiasm returned.

For Driver, life as a musician began in 1978 when he got a job as a bassist in a Christchurch group. "My brother was a singer in a resident band. Another group wanted a bass player and knew I was his brother. I was terrible, but they kept me on." It was the beginning of a full-time career.

[The full article can be read on the newspaper microfilm held at the City Library.]"