Music Review: Classic Kiwi Hits, How Is The Air Up There?

This compilation is full of classic kiwi favourites.

You know you're of a certain age if you recognise most of the 80, yes 80, songs on this remarkable new CD compilation of classic Kiwi hits.

And I did recognise most of them and could even leap into song myself, if of course there wasn't an audience to shout me down.

The group names bring back a flood of memories from the 1960s.

The La De Das, Larry's Rebels, Sandy Edmonds, The Underdogs, Ray Columbus and the Invaders, The Pleazers, Tom Thumb, Lee Grant, Tommy Adderley, Chants R'n'B, The Breakaways, Quincy Conserve, Johnny Devlin, The Librettos, Troubled Minds and The Roadrunners.

Grant Gillanders has assembled a sensational snapshot of those halcyon years of pop music in New Zealand.

While much of the focus was on Auckland talent, Wellington, Napier, Christchurch, Tauranga, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay, Whanganui and Palmerston North all contributed groups whose music appears in this compilation.

The liner notes also reflect the history of each of the bands and their credentials.

While you may not recognise every performance, you will definitely take a trip down memory lane with most of the Kiwi songs recorded here between 1965 and 1969.

While some might say that if you remember the 60s you couldn't have been there, I think this music just might reach inside your memory banks, and get you up and going.