Since the 1970s, Piet Botha (born 18th July 1955) has been working, playing and building a legendary reputation on the South African rock scene. He began writing songs and forming bands while still at school and then hooked up with Abner Smith at university to develop their acoustic duo. Botha then connected with the members of Tusk (Doc Barendse, Dino Salvatori and Derek Riley) to establish the band Raven. This hard-rocking four-piece won the "Beat 79" nation-wide competition for new rock groups and released the single 'Wheel Of Fortune' b/w 'The Horseman' on David Marks' Third Ear Label.
Botha then formed Catherine Wheel with the two members of Wildebeest, namely Dave Tarr and Colin Pratley. With Botha on bass, piano and mouth organ, the group expanded to a five piece and in 1981 the classic 'Bushrock 1' album was released. In 1984, Botha's new band, Jack Hammer, was started with Boet Faber, Jan Maloney and Eric Birckenstock, but the band's activities were put on hold when Botha relocated to the US in 1985. There he met Billy Bob Thornton with whom he began a strong friendship; Thornton also played drums and sang on the first Jack Hammer album. Twelve years later, Billy Bob Thornton won the "Best Actor" Academy Award for his part in the film 'Slingblade'.
After returning to SA in 1986, Botha restarted Jack Hammer and for the next ten years they released four excellent and acclaimed SA rock albums – 'Jack Of All Trades' (1987), 'The Judas Chapter' (1990), 'Ghosts On The Wind' (1994) and 'Death Of A Gypsy' (1996). During 1995, Eckard Potgieter decided to grow his successful CD club, Mainline Music, into an SA record company, and Wildebeest Records was born with Piet Botha very much part of their plans. Wildebeest released the Jack Hammer albums alongside albums by Valiant Swart, Koos Kombuis, the Transformers and the quirky Naaimasjiene.
In 1995 Jack Hammer played support for the Gauteng leg of the Uriah Heep/ Deep Purple "Masters Of Rock" South African tour. Jack Hammer also supported one of Piet's main influences, ZZ Top, on their SA tour. In 1997, Piet Botha and Wildebeest Records released Botha's first solo album, the All-Afrikaans, "n Suitcase Vol Winter', which has received critical and public approval. A second Afrikaans album, 'Jan Skopgraaf' was released in November 1999 and Piet toured South Africa with Jonathan Martin and Tertius du Plessis during November and December 1999 to promote this album and his back catalogue.
A Jack Hammer compilation titled simply 'Anthology' was released in January 2000 and featured tracks from all 4 previous Jack Hammer albums plus 4 new recordings and a new re-recording of their classic song 'Fort Lauderdale'.
In late 2001 a retrospective CD was released by EMI titled simply 'Die Hits' and included 4 new recordings as well as 'Verslag' which was previously only available on 'Om Te Breyten', a collection of Breyten Breytenbach's poetry performed by a variety of South African musicians. Early in 2003 Botha signed with Rhythm Records and in June 2003 he released an album of all new Afrikaans songs, titled 'Die Mamba'.
-- Stephen Segerman & Brian Currin
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