The Boys, the Old Mill, The Kor-Tels, Union Blues Soul Band and The Falcons are just some of the many names synonymous with the Timaru music scene. In this series, reporter Connor Haley talks to Timaru music historian Lyall Smillie and others about the people and places that made up the golden age of Timaru live music. This week’s edition focuses on one of Timaru’s formative music venues, the Sorrento Coffee Lounge.
Regarded as the venue to introduce the concept of wine and dine to Timaru, The Sorrento Coffee Lounge was also a bastion of early guitar music.
The Sorrento was purchased as a folk club by Ralph and Sylvia Lillico in the 1960s, and would be run by the family for 20 years.
After an initial stint above the Butterfields Furniture Shop in lower Stafford St, it would later reopen above the old Empire Hotel in Church St.
At the time New Zealanders were not big wine drinkers, and the Sorrento was one of the first venues to introduce bubbly wines like Blue Nun and Cold Duck to Timaru — brands that are said to still make many locals cringe when mentioned.
The lounge also provided a platform for iconic Timaru bands like The Picasso Trio and The Hottentots to flourish.
Drummer George Kinch, who would later join the Hottentots, said his first time playing in Timaru was at the Sorrento as part of The Swinging Sailors.
‘‘I was in Timaru on a ship called the Wellington Star — this must have been about 1961. One of the guys on the ship had a few drinks at night and of course the pubs were closed early in those days, so a lot of people ended up in the Sorrento.
‘‘This guy said to Ralph Lillico ‘we’ve got a band on board the ship that’s better than this band’ and so Ralph said ‘right, well bring them up here’.
‘‘The band was made up of twin brothers and me, just two guitars and drums. We went up to Ralph and we played there one night before we sailed.’’
Originally from County Wicklow, Ireland, he said he eventually moved to Timaru after also meeting his future wife there.
‘‘It was a blind date, December 16, 1962. We were playing on board the Wellington Star and then we were going up to the Royal for a couple of beers.
‘‘Instead of that one of the guys on the ship had met a girl at the Bay Hall the previous night and her cousin was staying with her. He’d ended up with a double date, so he asked about trying to get someone to go with him and since he had two girls everyone just said ‘aren’t you lucky’.
‘‘After the third time he came back to me and I said yes. I met Shirley at the Sorrento, and the next night I didn’t meet her because it was the night to do her hair and I thought that was the end of it.
‘‘I rang her back, we went to the movies, and started dating from then on. I did a couple more trips, sent letters and then I came out to Timaru to live and started to play in the Hottentots.’’
Timaru local Helen McFarlane also had a romantic tale from the Sorrento.
‘‘It was the days of mostly doing as we were told. A friend and I were 15-year-old schoolgirls with ‘make sure you catch that theatre bus home’ ringing in our ears as we departed.
‘‘The 8 o’clock films, as we called them then, finished around 10.15pm and we pondered a quick visit for a coffee at the nearest coffee lounge, The Sorrento. Dark, interesting, European flavour, music, low-hanging smoke and proper coffee with well-mannered black-clad waiters.
‘‘As the coffee arrived so did the waft of a foreign language, music to our ears in stuffy, unexciting Timaru. Before our coffee cups were drained, two sparkly-eyed Italian naval officers had joined us.’’
After missing the last bus, she said the pair decided they might as well be ‘‘very late’’ and spent the night wandering around Timaru with their newly acquired acquaintances, arranging to meet again the next day.
‘‘It was nearly 1am when we arrived home, my friend staying the night. The parental roar started at the front door. ‘Where have you been? Who have you been with? Do you know the time? How did you miss the bus?’.
‘‘Our high-heeled worn out feet were on fire, the French roll hairdos were falling down, and we were coming down to earth. ‘The film was late, we missed the last bus and had to walk’, we lied.’’
She said she was ‘‘gated’’ for six weeks.
‘‘The next day, as my friend wasn’t gated it was decided she would cycle back to Stafford St to the arranged meeting place to tell the visitors we couldn’t meet with them.
‘‘Imagine to her surprise to see them walking down the street with two other girls. She arrived back red-faced, puffing and a little wiser on men and swarthy, sparkly eyed Europeans in Timaru coffee lounges.’’
