It’s been 50 years since 'Yesterday Was Just the Beginning of My Life’ hit the airwaves and turned a 21-year-old from Te Kōpuru into a Kiwi pop sensation.
But here’s the twist: Mark Williams hated the song when he first heard it.
“Probably the worst song I’d ever heard,” he told Te Ao with Moana, chuckling.
But with a bit of soul, a few tweaks, and the help of producer Alan Galbraith and his band Redeye, the track went straight to number one. Just like that, the reluctant pop star was born.
Back then in 1975, when there was only one TV channel, no social media or devices, Mark was doing the hard yards on the pub circuit.
“You’ve got to entertain,” he says.
He couldn’t wait for the first outing back at his favourite pub, the Gisborne Sundown, but he returned to nothing.
“Absolutely no reaction,” he laughs.
But a week later, busloads were turning up at tiny pub just to see him play.
That voice. Those moves. And the clothes.
“I used to make those myself,” he says proudly. “Didn’t have any money. My girlfriend (Pam Beadle) - she’s my partner now - got a sewing machine for her 21st. She broke it the first time she used it, so I took over.”
Mark would listen to music and imagine what Hendrix, Bowie, the Jacksons might be wearing. Think sequins. Think fringe. Think glam.
“I created a monster,” he says now, half-laughing, half-wincing. “I couldn’t even go out in public. But I had always had an alter ego, ever since I was a kid.”
Mark’s style was bold right from the start - handmade glam outfits, glitter, eyeliner. A look that didn’t always go down well with his dad. A mechanic in a small-town garage, ‘Fordie’ Clive Williams had to face the boys at work after seeing his son on TV in glitter and lamé.
“My poor father,” Mark chuckles. “When I made a blue lamé outfit that was cut right down to the groin — oh, he just couldn’t handle it. He had to face the boys at work. He hated it.”
But despite the shock factor, his dad never turned his back on him.
“He didn’t cut me off or anything. He just didn’t know what to do with it.”
Over time, things changed. The music, the success, the recognition - it mattered, especially when he sang his hit song ‘Show No Mercy’ at the NRL Grand Final in 1990 between Canberra and Penrith – shades of Terence Trent Darby, in both look and sound.
“Dad was quietly proud,” Mark says. “And Mum, well, she was over the moon. She was my biggest protector.”
Music was always part of the family. His mother, kuia, and aunties all played piano. One memory sticks out.
“There’s a photo of me when I was about four, sitting on Mum’s lap playing the piano, with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth!” he laughs. “We’re talking the late ’50s. It was a different time.”
Mark’s first steps into music came early. Playing in a school band that landed a regular gig at the Ōtāhuhu Community Centre when he was just 18. Mark joined his neighbour Mack Tane, drummer Gregg Findlay and Willie Hona, who would go on to play in Herbs. The Face was born.
“We got twenty bucks for the night,” he laughs. “And that was for the whole band.”
It wasn’t glamorous. They’d play two nights a week, then head back to their flat in Herne Bay, where rent was $25 a week.
“We were just doing the hard yards,” Mark says. “But that’s how it started.”
While the unassuming singer would quickly reject any notion he was a rock star.
“I was just a pop star.”
He did have some pretty rock ‘n roll moments. One night at Western Springs, with hundreds of kids in the crowd, Mark hit a big note under a massive spotlight and swallowed a moth. “Right down the back of my throat!” Still finished the song, though. “Barely,” he laughs.
The following day, he was laid up in the hospital, diagnosed with polyps on his vocal cords. For the next three months, with ‘Was Just the Beginning of My Life’ at the top of the charts, Mark could not warble a note.
His self-titled debut album peaked at No.2 and remained in the charts for 30 weeks, making it the highest-selling New Zealand album of the year.
Raised up north and a student at Dargaville High, for most of his life, Mark Williams wasn’t particularly connected to the marae of his mother, Atiria (Tilly) Te Paa.
“Mum kept us away from all of that,” Mark says, “She used to be out of hui and things like that, but we weren’t brought up with it.”
It wasn’t until the early 1990s, when their mother got sick, that Mark and his siblings had their first real foray to their marae.
“We had to kind of stumble our way through it,” he admits. “That was our first real experience with it, and it was pretty daunting.”
It wasn’t always welcoming, either.
“We weren’t made to feel that comfortable about it,” Mark says with a small laugh. “Which I get — people can be like that. But we pushed through, and eventually we started to understand more, and feel more at home in it.”
Then came a revelation about his mother’s whakapapa that brought everything full circle.
“We found out she was from not just one, but two iwi,” he says, still sounding a little surprised.“Ngāpuhi,” he thinks out loud. “And Tūwharetoa.” Mark started visiting whānau around Taumarunui.
When the pub circuit started to close in, Mark headed off to Australia as his second hit 'It Doesn’t Matter Anymore’ was racing up the charts.
From backing vocals with Sharon O’Neill, Jenny Morris and Margaret Urlich to recording the Home and Away theme and even scoring a song on the Strictly Ballroom soundtrack. He toured with Aussie soul queen Renée Geyer - “tough as nails, but she liked me”- and later coached rising stars on Australian Popstars. Some made it. Some didn’t. Mark was the ‘first door’ they walked through.
“Everyone’s got a dream,” he says sadly, while admitting some didn’t walk through the second because of him.
These days, Mark’s still got it. He’s the frontman for legendary band Dragon, and yes, he’s still singing. But now, he shares the stage with someone extra special, his daughter Taylor.
“We just love singing together,” he says. “Little restaurants, here and there. Just a sideline.”
Does he miss home and would he ever consider moving back? “If you asked me right now—yes, I would.”
The boy from Dargaville with the big afro, a flair for fashion, and a bigger soul sound - Mark Williams made his mark. And five decades on, he’s still rocking it.
Watch Te Ao with Moana on Māori+ or Whakaata Māori, every Monday at 8pm.