E Ipo tune

The tune used is an Indonesian tune that was popular in the 1970s. Tui Teka would have heard it when performing in South East Asian venues. Record producer Dalvanius Prime told me that he had some problems with the Indonesian Embassy and the composer before they got permission to use it when E Ipo was first recorded.

Mr Dennis Marsh has kindly given permission for use of MP3 clips from his Out of New Zealand CD .
1. Kia koe te tau MP3 140 K.
2. Tena ra e hine MP3 70 K.
3. Oti ra e hine (same tune as 2)

E Ipo on record

1. 1983 Prince Tui Teka, The man, the Music, the Legend, LP
2. 1990 25 years of Kiwi pop
3. 1992 Golden age of Maori song
4. 1995 New Zealand: our land, our music
5. 1996 Kiwi gold disc. 4
6. 1996 New Zealand Maoris ; 20 favourite songs
7. 1996 Prince Tui Teka, The Man, the Music, the Legend, CD
   When this recording was re-issued as a CD, Ngoi's name was spelt Ngoi Pewhai Rangi
   and the song was spelt E. I. Po (Oh that night), a play on the words E Ipo (Oh darling).
8. 1997 Aotearoa : the Maoris of New Zealand.
9. 1997 Maori love songs, 16 favourites
10. 1997 The Best of New Zealand
11. 1997 Maori songs of New Zealand
12. 1997 New Zealand singalong: Kiwi favourites
13. 1999 What becomes of the broken hearted?
14. 2000? Dennis Marsh, Out of New Zealand
15. ........ Rhythms Of The World
16. ........ The Best of Prince Tui Teka
17. 2000 Songs of New Zealand Tauri
18. 2001 New Zealand party megamix
19. 2001 Hooked on Maori
20. 2002 The Greatest Prince Tui Teka
21. 2002 Aotearoa our country, our songs
22. 2004 Nature's Best

Born Ngoingoi Ngawai in Tokomaru Bay, where she was raised in the Ringatu faith by relatives.

Her primary schooling was at Tokomaru Bay Native school. Her first language was Mäori but she quickly became literate in English. Later, from 1938 to 1941, she attended Hukarere Mäori Girls School in Napier. After leaving school she returned to Tokomaru Bay and worked for her aunt, Tuini Ngawai, in her shearing gang. Also during this time she competed in many hockey/kapa haka tournaments around the North Island.

She was a member of the Te Hokowhitu-a-Tu concert party which her aunt, Tuini Ngawai, founded in 1939 to raise money for the war effort. Ngoi was groomed by Tuini in performance, composition and leadership, and she later tutored and led the group on many occasions. In 1945 she married Ben Pewhairangi, a Tokomaru Bay farm worker.

In the 1970s Ngoi taught Mäori language and culture at Gisborne Girls High School, and later began tutoring for the University of Waikato's certificate in Maori studies. Her skill in motivating people regardless of race, age, gender, or occupation was soon recognised, and by 1977 she was asked to work in the Tu Tangata program, rescuing alienated urban Maori youth.

Ngoi speaking at the 1982 Weavers' Hui, Pakirikiri Marae, Tokomaru Bay.

In 1975 she helped develop the Te Ataarangi tv method of teaching the Maori language using Cuiseinaire rods. In 1983 she brought together skilled Maori and Pacific Island weavers for a week at Tokomaru Bay and formed the Aotearoa Moana Nui a Kiwa Weavers.

Ngoi was considered an expert on adjudicating kapa haka competion, she was frequently called upon to judge them. She composed many songs such as Kia Kaha Nga Iwi, Ka Noho Au, and Whakarongo. She was renowned for the spontaneitity of the compositions she wrote for many people, such as Poi E which she wrote for Dalvanius Prime.

She wrote E Ipo for Prince Tui Teka when he came courting Missy, who lived up Ruatoria way, so that he could sing of his overwhelming love for her.

When Ngoi died at Tokomaru Bay in 1985, she was revered for her unstinting advancement of the Maori language and culture and for her ideal of a bicultural nation in which Pakeha would help to ensure the survival of the Maori language.

Summarised from an article by Taania Ka'ai in The Dictionary of NZ Biography.

Prince Tui Teka

Teka was from Ruatahuna in the Ureweras, and had a musical childhood. His mother played mouth organ and clarinet, and his father was a saxophonist with a bush band. After learning guitar and saxophone at woolshed dances with teenage bands, Teka moved to Sydney and began a six-year stand with the Maori Volcanics showband on the Japan and Pacific circuit. The 'Prince' title was adopted when Teka joined the Maori Troubadours: 'In those days Elvis was the king of rock'n'roll so we thought up New Zealand's prince of entertainment.'

In the 1970s Teka performed solo in Sydney and southeast Asian clubs, his extravagant stage wardrobe including rhinestone jackets and embroidered shirts cut for his one hundred and forty kilogram frame. His cabaret set was enlivened with downhome jokes: Nat King Cole ('I'm his half-brother Charcoal'). His over-sized choreography added to the fun, as Teka found later when he dieted down forty kilograms on medical advice: "I had no stomach to wiggle."

Missy joined the show after their marriage in 1976. Teka would appear on up to ten instruments- "Middle of the road," he said, "a couple reggae numbers, a couple country and western, rock'n'roll impressions and playing different instruments."

By 1981 he had returned to Tokomaru Bay ('I began to feel homesick') and became a household name during the next year with E Ipo, and two albums with Teka originals including Real Love and Oh Mum. He appeared in films, including Came A Hot Friday and Savage Islands, in which he featured as a cannibal chief.