One of a series which examines Trevor’s musical career in South Africa.
It’s been known for over a decade now that Trevor’s “secret discography” (as I refer to it) contains a series of primarily instrumental Easy Listening records which were released under the name Trevor Terblanche. The first to officially cite one of the albums in a discography was T.H. Cutler on her Rabbitt fansite, which contains a wealth of information and research regarding the band and its’ members. I highly recommend it to all Rabinites (and have provided a link on the blog); but also as a reminder that research into Trevor’s career has been ongoing for a very long time and yet there’s always more to learn. But the information regarding the type and style of material recorded in this instance has been long-existant already and therefore is no big mystery.
To finally place this in its proper historical context (beyond the mention I give on the biography page); in regards to the (not so) burning question of the name utilized (actually an entire studio ensemble of which Trevor was only the guitar player): the series is called Lekker Kitaar and that - along with the use of the name Terblanche - identifies it as aimed at the Afrikaans market (beyond the detail of the album covers displaying English text on one side and Afrikaans on the other). Terblanche is a very prevalent surname among those South Africans who are considered a part of that demographic (and there are more than a few Terblanches of renown, such as Pierre Terblanche, designer of the Ducati Multistrada and other superbikes). As Trevor recently related when asked, the series was created to be sold in supermarkets. The DJ Records label appears to have been the South African equivalent of K-Tel (for those of you who remember the vinyl era).
Trevor worked hundreds of sessions between 1971-1977, his primary vocation was as a session musician/arranger, even as Rabbitt became a (hormonally-charged) household name in the country. He played probably every genre of music which was being created and covered in South Africa (historically, songs and albums often had to be recreated by local musicians because the censures did not allow for importation into the country or the SA government might have banned the original recording). There are at least three Lekker Kitaar albums (I state this based on my personal collection: I own numbers one through three), perhaps more than that. On them Trevor covered the popular songs of the day as well as local favorites, translated to a thoroughly populist palatable pop style. But it was never meant to be any kind of actual musical identifier for him, merely a marketing tool, and even before his statement this fact was wholly obvious based on the packaging and content of the albums.
This is NOT Trevor on the cover:
So this particular conceit – when examined against the whole of Trevor’s SA career – is just not that special. Interesting to rabid Rabinites, but not important; especially when one considers he went on to come up with other studio projects with similar aims. For example, The Tee Cee’s was a studio project created to cash in on the demand for disco records, and more than any other recording he appeared on in that vein, the album Disco Love Bite is wholly his: full of his particular methodology and style in every aspect. And it was cunningly named after him (T.C. being his initials) which likely made it that much more attractive to fans without having to actually fully claim it as his own (though his name is all over the credits). As with a lot of things the status of Trevor Terblanche is just a potential trivia question, one of the dozens of permutations of the Maestro’s burgeoning true identity both as a professional and a master of his chosen instrument.
