Ray Columbus And The Invaders

Ray Columbus & the Invaders were a rock group from Christchurch, New Zealand that was active from 1964 to 1966, fronted by the lead vocalist, Ray Columbus, a musician, television host and manager. Part of the new surf music craze, they were the first New Zealand band to have a number 1 in another country, Australia, with their cover of The Senators' song "She's a Mod".

The seeds for the La De Das THE HAPPY PRINCE were sown very early on in 1967, long before Pete Townsend's TOMMY and Ray Davies' ARTHUR were even conceived, unfortunately it would be two years before it was finally released.Band members Bruce Howard and Trevor Wilson were talking of a rock opera as early as 1966 and started writing material early in 1967. The project was temporarily put on hold while the band left New Zealand in May '67 to hopefully conquer the Aussie scene.The La De Das eventually talked EMI Australia into recording THE HAPPY PRINCE album in January 1969. Finally released in April 1969 to unanimously excellent reviews, it was only a moderate seller at the time.This album is comprised of two versions of THE HAPPY PRINCE - one version is without Adrian Rawlins' narration in an attempt to show how the album might have sounded as a collection of songs.