Former chart-toppers hail Wairarapa hometown in song

Life in smalltown Wairarapa has led two former Featherston musicians to toll a musical tribute to the street they used to call home.
Carl Evensen and Bernard Carey, who respectively played their way into Kiwi music history in past chart-busting bands Formyula and Kal-Q-Lated Risk, have now formed The Bell Street Band after the street where they each lived with their families.
Carey said the band also features Wellington musician Stella Blyde and Aucklander Regan Bell and the easy-listening unit have recorded in Auckland a debut album of songs titled Bell Street _ of course.
''The album is a tribute to Featherston, and to Bell St, especially the second track, Tomcat. The street really has significance, and not just for Carl and I, and the album highlights our take on it all,'' Carey said.
Carey and Evensen live in Auckland but left Featherston ''as teenagers in pursuit of musical careers'' after cutting their teeth together in Evensen's The Factors band in the town.
The pair at first played together in Kal-Q-Lated Risk after leaving Wairarapa before Evensen left to front Formyula and was replaced by Ian Taylor.
''Both bands ended up in England coincidentally, chasing that elusive fame and fortune,'' Carey said.
''We all came back home again after that and settled back in to the Kiwi way of life, where Carl and I kept pursuing our careers as musicians.'' But neither forsook ''or forgot'' their musical and family roots, Carey said.
''Bell Street is symbolic because it's where our families lived in Featherston and it's also where we used to practise music in our new tin shed, play gigs in the Anzac Hall, go to school, to church, the swimming baths ... you name it ... and of course there was the railway and station on Bell St as well, which was so much a part of all our lives at that time.
''Bell St also has a place in New Zealand history as the street the Japanese prisoners-of-war were marched down, past the Anzac Hall, and out of town to the military camp during World War II.
''But for us it was where we grew up sharing our dreams and where we experienced life together in a small Kiwi town ...''
The Bell Street Band are working on a second recording project. Kal-Q-Lated Risk formed in 1967 and moved from Featherston to Wellington, without Evensen, a year later. Their first single, I'll Be Home (In A Day Or So), was released in 1970 and made the Loxene Golden Disc Award finals.
Looking Through The Eyes Of A Beautiful Girl, released in 1971, arguably became their best-known song and was their greatest commercial success after placing at No14 on the national charts on the heels of their single, Angelina, which made No16. Kal-Q-Lated Risk released their only album, Holding Our Own, in 1972.
The Formyula formed in 1967, with Carl Evensen joining as lead vocalist a year later. Their first release, Come With Me, made it to No2 in August of that year.
The band released 14 singles, 10 of which reached the New Zealand Top 20, and recorded five albums. The Formyula won the New Zealand Entertainers of the Year award in 1970 and their tune, Nature, won the APRA Silver Scroll Award in its year of release and in 2001 was voted New Zealand's greatest pop song.