Stoking the star-making machine with a music legend | Patric van Blerk
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Stoking the star-making machine with a music legend | Patric van Blerk
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About this listen
Van Blerk's story begins with a 13-year-old epiphany: "I could also be in music. There's nothing stopping me."
That certainty becomes the through-line of his entire career, from warehouse floor picker at Gallo to the architect of Joburg Records, South Africa's most significant independent label. His path reveals a fundamental truth: the music industry's gatekeepers are often those who started by genuinely loving the gate.
The Rabbitt saga stands as the podcast's emotional centerpiece, a Beatlemania-scale phenomenon that came terrifyingly close to global breakthrough before imploding. Van Blerk's willingness to discuss failure ("I know what mistakes I made") shows rare vulnerability. The detail about bullets flying in Hillbrow clubs while they rehearsed "Boys Will Be Boys" crystallises the raw, dangerous energy of that era's South African rock scene.
But it's his work with Margaret Singana that reveals van Blerk's true ANR instinct. Hearing her voice and feeling "shivers down my spine", then navigating apartheid's grotesque bureaucracy (the separate entrance for "black records" at the SABC) shows someone who let talent trump every institutional barrier. The arc from "I Never Loved a Man" to the wheelchair-bound recording of "We Are Growing" is heartbreaking and triumphant simultaneously.
Van Blerk's philosophy emerges clearly: "If you don't really, really love music and you're willing to lay down your life for it... get up now." His legacy isn't hits or wealth, it's sustained enthusiasm across fifty years of dark valleys. In an era of playlist algorithms and viral moments, his story reminds us that great music careers are built on one irreplaceable foundation: genuine, irrational, life-consuming love of the art itself.
As he says: "It's the music."
Everything else is commentary. Patric van Blerk · Vinyl Junkie Website · Solid Gold Podcasts #BeHeard · Connect with Benjy on LinkedIn · Music Rights Clearances
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