A Portrait of David Curtis

A rare copy of this 1974 album from David Curtis in great condition both vinyl and cover.

David Curtis stands out as being one of the youngest hit makers New Zealand has produced. He came to the attention of producer Alan Galbraith as a 13 year old school boy from Wellington. Alan heard an acetate of David singing four current pop songs, backed simply by a guitar. It was good, but the commercial value was still unclear. Alan persevered with David and a few weeks later "Wheel Of Fortune"/"When The Stars Begin To Fall" was released on the New Zealand market in October 1970. The result was an instant smash hit and a gold record. The single reached number 5 on the national charts, selling over 17,000 copies. This made David the youngest artist ever to feature on the New Zealand Top Twenty. "Wheel Of Fortune" also made it to the finals of the 1970 Loxene Gold Disk Awards.

Over the next year he released two albums, the first self titled and the second called "Album Two". From these albums, a number of singles were released, including "The Wedding", "I'm Gonna Knock On Your Door" and "Someone To Love Me". All of these did well locally but did not make the national charts. His next best success came in 1971 with a song that David composed the music for, while his mother provided the lyrics, "Take Your Leave". The song won first prize in the song-writing section on TV's Studio One competition and reached number 4 nationally. David also took the song to Japan where he represented New Zealand at the Yamaha World Popular Song Contest in Tokyo, winning one of the major prizes. Following this success and at the request of EMI in Japan, "Take Your Leave" was specially recorded in Japanese.