King of cool getting better with age

Glenn Shorrock says The Little River Band's success was built on great music, not showmanship. Photo / Supplied

There's a lot more to singer Glenn Shorrock than the Little River Band.

Something he will show audiences at Linden Estate Winery in Esk Valley this Saturday from 3pm, during a performance set to fill a gap left by the Mission Concert.

"I have been blessed with a long and successful career and I'm doing some of my best work right at the moment," he says.

Shorrock is known for penning many of the Little River Band's greatest hits and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame as their frontman in 2004, having received the honour individually in 1991.

The act cracked a tough United States market with eight Top-10 songs including Help is on its Way, Cool Change and Happy Anniversary after forming in 1970s Melbourne.

They enjoyed global popularity well into the 1990s, selling more than 25 million albums and are acknowledged as having opened doors for many Australian acts internationally.

However Shorrock is reserved about the success of tunes that are still regularly played on international radio stations.

"I've done very well with my songs, like Help Is On The Way and Cool Change ... If you have a good-quality song and get a connection to the audience, then it will keep coming back and back and back," he said in an earlier interview.

Part of the Little River Band's appeal was their ability to turn out great music without relying too heavily on showmanship.

"It was all based around the material, that's why we were never really famous as pop singers, we were more regarded as being a musical group. The musicality of the songs came through first, rather than cheesy grins and tight red trousers or something."

Shorrock has packed plenty into his 50-year career in music - starting with The Twilights, 1962, who scored the hits Needle in a Haystack and Bad Boy. By 1966 they won Hoadleys National Battle of the Sounds and a chance to record at England's Abbey Rd Studios beside the Beatles.

The next project, Axiom, disbanded soon after moving to London in 1970 when Shorrock chose to stay on as a session singer and songwriter working with expats and Europeans in a 12-piece rock orchestra named Esperanto.

But his credentials don't end there, extending to all fields of show business, notably theatre and cabaret, with roles in Evita and The Rocky Horror Show, as well as his own productions: One for the Money, Go Cat Go and Two Up.

A career highlight was producing and performing alongside Sir George Martin in the highly acclaimed production All You Need Is Beatles (1998).

Shorrock regularly helps out with various charities and continues as an ambassador for Variety children's charity, and in 2004 launched the Glenn Shorrock Music Scholarship in Gawler, South Australia, where he went to school.

-General admission tickets are available from lindenestatewinery.co.nz or iticket.co.nz for $65, inc transport to the event via bus from specified pick-up locations. No chilly bins, liquids or BYO are allowed.