The French Family Band – Sonny (left), Camille and Stuie French – are guest performers at the 2024 Entertainer of the Year Awards in Rotorua this weekend.
The French Family Band – Sonny (left), Camille and Stuie French – are guest performers at the 2024 Entertainer of the Year Awards in Rotorua this weekend.
Gisborne-born country music singer Camille French (nee Te Nahu) is back in New Zealand to perform at the prestigious NZ Country Music Entertainer of the Year Awards in Rotorua this weekend.
The Nashville-based French Family Band made up of French, husband Stuie and son Sonny, will be the guest starsat the annual event.
French’s country music journey began in her hometown where she sang at the Gisborne Country Music Club as a primary school student and honed her skills.
Over the years she entered many talent quests, national country music competitions and won national awards.
Only a few weeks back, the French Family Band performed for thefifth time at the famous Grand Ole Opry House in the home of country music, Nashville, Tennessee.
“It is every country music artist’s dream to perform at the Grand Old Opry,” French says.
The building hosts the Grand Ole Opry, a regular live country-music radio broadcast originating from Nashville held between two and five nights per week, depending on the time of year.
“To play on the same stage as some of our musical heroes has been amazing and to keep being invited back is pretty incredible,” she said.
“It’s also quite uncommon for unsigned, independent music producers to be given this opportunity.”
French is in good company with country music greats such as Garth Brooks and Keith Urban having also graced the Opry stage.
Sonny, Camille and Stuie French playing at the Nashville's Grand Ole Opry for the first time last year.
In 1999, French moved from Gisborne to Australia where she met husband Stuie, a master of the country/jazz guitar style.
They won their first Golden Guitar Award together for the best alternative country album of the year at the 2013 Tamworth Golden Guitar Awards in Australia. Together with their three children Chet (20), Sonny (17) and Manaia 14, they moved to Nashville, US, in 2019.
In the lockdown of 2020, they started livestreaming shows from their lounge on YouTube. The show brought them thousands of new fans, expanding their audiences in the US and around the world.
Their most popular video has more than 3 million views.
“It opened a lot of doors for us and helped us break into the Nashville scene. Nashville can be a hard town to crack so we have been very fortunate. We had country music greats Marty Stuart and Connie Smith get in touch and tell us how much they were enjoying the shows.”
The French Family Band were known for playing classic country music as well as original songs.
“I think people loved the fact that we were a family playing together – and we were playing authentic old-school songs with a bit of a jazz influence. We also do something called twinning where two guitars play harmonies together.”
Their Australian bass player Geoff Simpson will join them at the Rotorua event where they will be playing covers of country music favourites and some original songs and instrumentals.
They will also play a VIP concert on Friday night for around 200 people.
This year there will be 26 finalists competing in the 2024 New Zealand Country Music Entertainer of the Year Awards in five categories – junior, intermediate, senior, veteran and songwriting.
The Gisborne Country Music Club has 12 finalists competing in a variety of categories with Amy Maynard up for the senior prize having won senior overall at the Palmerston North competition earlier this year. Maynard also won the overall prize at the NZ Gold Guitar Awards in Gore in June.
Past winners include Dennis Marsh, Camille Te Nahu, Jeremy Hantler (The Harmonic Resonators) and fiddler extraordinaire, Marian Burns.
There will be a big contingent from The Gisborne Country Music Club attending the awards including club president Flo Pahuru who has a wall of photos in her home dedicated to Camille.
