Peter Madill and Jack MacKenzie aka Luthiers Corner to play in Palmy

Peter Madill and Jack MacKenzie play at the Hokowhitu Bowling Club this Saturday night.

Two musicians from different worlds but heaps in common will play a gig in Palmerston North this weekend with instruments they have made themselves.

Flashback (cue wavy visuals and groovy music): It’s the early 1970s, and two young men living 10,000km apart were being influenced by folk music and the associated musical instruments that became so popular at the time.

Peter Madill and Jack MacKenzie were both involved in music and the construction and repair of instruments. As it turned out, the respective universes were not only parallel, but converging.

Cut to the 2019 Wellington Folk Festival and their serendipitous first meeting, where they became aware of each other’s music and the potential that existed between them.

Both were performing at the festival - Peter with the Madillionaires and Jack with the Downunderdogs - while also displaying their work as luthiers.

They found a bond through their guitar building. Madill, being the more established and experienced of the two, was kind and generous and began helping MacKenzie develop his skills.

Sticky problems were solved through collaboration and Madill’s formal woodworking skills were shared with each visit.

Aside from the guitar building, both men had an interest in each other’s music. They decided to try a short stage performance at the last Mid-Winter Holler in February last year.

Their music was well received and as a result of encouragement and suggestion, an experimental concert at the Wellington Bluegrass Society followed.

Although both men have different approaches to the music, the common thread of the folk music tradition allows an intuitive understanding of the music.

Because of this, adaptation to each other’s repertoires followed naturally. Their music is underpinned by vast repertoires, harmony vocals, solid flat picking and the possibility of an appearance of the pedal steel guitar that Jack has been teaching himself to play.

The pair are coming to the Hokowhitu Bowling Club this weekend through Bent Horseshoe promotions as Luthier’s Corner.

Bent Horseshoe’s Steve Tolley said it promises to be an interesting and rewarding evening, as theirs was a unique pairing.

“...steeped in a combined rich history of decades of involvement in this art, complete with unique stories and a perspective born of the pursuit of both luthiery and music,” he said.

WHO: Luthiers Corner.

WHERE: The Hokowhitu Bowling Club.

WHEN: Saturday, August 24.

HOW MUCH: $20 at the door