Country music line-up heads to Bay

Delaney Davidson, Tami Neilson, Marlon Williams and Barry Saunders make the line-up of this year's Church Tour. Photo/supplied

The Church Tour 2015 line-up has been announced and it has a strong country flavour with an APRA Silver Scroll winner included.

The annual tour visits seven New Zealand churches and cathedrals, including Tauranga's Holy Trinity Church in October.

Country star Tami Neilson is the headline act and will perform alongside Delaney Davidson, Marlon Williams and Barry Saunders.

Neilson is the winner of multiple Country Album of the Year Tui award and also won the prestigious APRA Silver Scroll for Song of the Year in 2014.

Neilson has been called a "red-hot honky-tonker, somewhere between Patsy Cline and Wanda Jackson with perhaps just a little bit of Peggy Lee sophistication".

Her last album, Dynamite, received a five-out-of-five stars review in the New Zealand Herald, which said "this world-class album is a major statement from an artist at the top of her lyrical and vocal game".

Delaney Davidson is a three-time winner of the APRA New Zealand Country Music Song of the Year, has a Country Album of the Year Tui Award, has produced albums for tour mate Neilson and had his Swim Down Low album trumpeted by the UK Independent as "a rattling, twanging celebration".

Musician Marlon Williams has been described as the impossible love child of Elvis, Roy Orbison and Townes van Zandt.

At the age of 17, he exploded on to the New Zealand country music scene, fronting alt-country band The Unfaithful Ways, then gathering a Country Album of the Year Tui with Davidson and has just released his self-titled debut album.

Williams said he relished the opportunity to perform "in what are undoubtedly the most acoustically rewarding spaces in New Zealand".

The line-up is complete with gigging musician Barry Saunders. Saunders formed The Warratahs and performed songs including Maureen, Hands of My Heart, Interislander Song and Rescue Me.

Civic Events promoters Brent Eccles and Campbell Smith were thrilled with the line-up.

"The bill for this year's Church Tour is something very special, it has all the elements we think you need for a landmark tour - talent, camaraderie, passion and freshness, bound together by great songs and incredible voices in stunning venues. It is going to be epic," Eccles said.

The Church Tour is in its seventh year.

* Tickets for all shows are available from the Church Tour website www.churchtour.co.nz and Ticketmaster from July 6, or July 1 for Civic Events member pre-sales.

* See this Thursday's vibe for an interview with Tami Neilson.