Guitarist Steve Newman is on the road again

Steve Newman was among the last musicians to perform at Joburg’s Radium Beer Hall before it was auctioned on October 16. But the self-taught acoustic guitarist is still in business: at the age of 72 he’s touring again.

Newman began performing in the 1970s with classical guitarist Tony Cox and was part of the Tananas trio in the 1980s with Ian Herman and Gito Baloi. “Those were lekker times,” he says.

A big break came in the late 1970s, when one of the owners of the 3 Arts Theatre in Cape Town invited Newman and his fellow musicians to open for Irish singer Geraldine Brannigan on her eight-week tour of South Africa.

“It wasn’t really our thing, but she was popular here, and it opened things up for us,” Newman says. From there, one thing led to another, such as the improvisations for which his music is known. Though Tananas played jazz, it was in its own way in with the rock scene of live music in the 1980s.

Asked if South Africa will ever again see the kind of subversive stomp that characterised anti-establishment music under apartheid, Newman says: “Nooit. I don’t think we’ll ever get back to ‘normal’. Everything has changed, especially after the Covid lockdowns.”

Thinking back about “jolling in Joburg”, Newman says the idea of Tananas started at Jameson’s pub, a haunt remembered for its bad sound, low morals and surveillance by police.

“One Friday evening I saw Gito sing at Jameson’s. I already knew Ian (who played the drums) from Cape Town. Like all musicians, we threatened to get together and jam.

“A debut in 1988 ushered in constant touring — Canada, the US, Europe, the Far East.” Newman says Tananas clicked from the get go.

Living in Surfers Corner in Muizenberg, he said he let the music wash through him like the surf, creating a template for future tunes.

When Newman was “maybe six years old”, an accident with a coil of wire injured his right eye. This flared up in 2004, leading to a detached retina and blindness in that eye.

Seven years ago, cataract-removal surgery in his left eye took a nasty turn. He had to raise R31,000 through crowdfunding for a follow-up operation, which failed.

Now, living in a world of grey hues and vague silhouettes, Newman’s near blindness has led to his son, Jay, stepping in. Part manager, part social media man and part personal assistant, the 28-year-old Jay makes sure his father gets around.

By introducing Newman to platforms such as Bandcamp, Jay makes sure the music posted online receives fair remuneration, as opposed to his father being fleeced. “Streaming services like Spotify just exploit us,” Newman says.

“From around the years of the credit crunch things have been really tough. Touring South Africa got so expensive because of fuel costs that it became cheaper to fly to the former Grahamstown.”

Covid made it worse. European benefactors offered their assistance, especially Switzerland’s arts community. “The Swiss approached us and asked what they could do to help. They asked us to draw up a list of our expenses in a simple e-mail, and the next thing was that they paid money into our account for the next six months. When that ran out, they came through with more money for another six months. Our own arts community was exactly the opposite. They expected us to jump through hoops.”

The “acrobatics” led to nothing, he says. At least music’s gigging landscape has changed. Newman says he and tabla player Nish Pillay often perform in the Free State, including in yoga studios in places such as Bloemfontein, which was “previously unheard of”.

To keep touring, he turned to the Klein Karoo  Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) a few years ago. “I had never been keen on the KKNK because of their attitude in the past, but it changed and became more eclectic. When I went to them eventually, they said: ‘But you’re not Afrikaans.’ I said I play instrumental music. ‘What do you want me to do, translate all the song titles?’”

Newman found it odd that at the same time Steve Hofmeyr was doing a tribute show to Neil Diamond, selling out night after night. “I’m sure he didn’t do it in Afrikaans. Singing has, anyway, never been my thing. I’ve never had a good fake American accent,” Newman says.

This article originally appeared in Financial Mail.