Acoustic Routes Home of Wellington Folk Music | April Concert: Mike Harding

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April Concert: Mike Harding

Sunday 26 April, 8pm

Toi Poneke

67 Abel Smith St

Mike Harding

Mike grew up in and around Eketahuna in the 1950's and 1960's. In the 1970's University and High School teaching competed with the guitar and the urge to travel. A musical apprenticeship in the streets, markets and clubs of Auckland in the early 1980's was followed by his "Time on the Road" decade, taking his all- Kiwi, solo acoustic shows to all corners of New Zealand and partts of Australia and Britain.

Seeing home from over the seas strengthened a sense of identity and inspired the search for songs that tell our own stories. His need to know more about the songs he was singing and recording led to the 1992 publi- cation of "When the Pakeha Sings of Home", Mike's source guide to the folk and popular songs of New Zea-
land.

Mike's tenth recording "Past to the Present", is drawn from some of his
homegrown repertoire recorded and broadcast to New Zealand by National Radio in the 1990's.

This recording featuring folk songs of New Zea- land's past & present along with the best of Mike's original songs. Recent years have seen the wandering minstrel living in New Plymouth, teaching guitar and being a family man while still performing Kiwi music solo or with Taranaki combo Gumboot Tango. In a typical performance, Mike will call on songs from or about the past, folk-songs from the days of the European explorers and settlers through to the present, including the work of contemporary rock songwriters.

"I will be at Acoustic Routes to share my passion for the songs of New Zealand, songs that have Kiwi char- acters telling their own stories: Dicky Barrett, whaler; Tex Morton, rodeo operator; immigrants on the Charlotte Jane, 1850, toasting their new life; reluctant haymakers and famous sheep-stealers; courting cattle-drovers.