Saturday, October 26, 2013

Accolade For Shona Laing

This week the NZ Music Awards announced its nominations.
The highlight is the long-overdue induction into the NZ Music Hall of Fame of kiwi singer/songwriter Shona Laing.
Damian Vaughan, CEO of Recorded Music NZ:
"Not only is Shona extremely talented and deserving of this award, hers is also a pioneering acknowledgment of the role female artists play in our music psyche."
Laing's four-decade career started in 1972 when she was a 17-yr.old schoolgirl, coming runner-up in the tv talent show 'New Faces' with her song 1905. Her first two singles, 1905 and Show Your Love, both certified gold and both peaked at No.4 on the NZ charts.
In 1973 she won two Rata awards: Best New Artist and Recording Artist Of The Year. Laing twice represented NZ at the Tokyo World Song Festival - in 1973 (with the song Masquerade) and 1974.
She travelled to Britain in 1975 and was based there for the next seven years - in 1982, she was a vocalist for Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
Perhaps the most well-known of Shona's hits would be from the 1986 Genre album: (Glad I'm) Not A Kennedy hit No.2 in NZ, and No.14 on US Modern Rock list. Shona even had a cameo singing role in the 1985 movie Shaker Run.
To refresh your memory, here's a kiwi classic from a classy kiwi...

A self-concious video, but a great song...

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