BLUESMAN:Mike Garner headlines with blues harp maestro Neil Billington at the Cross Creek Blues Club show night at the Tin Hut in Tauherenikau tonight. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
BLUESMAN:Mike Garner headlines with blues harp maestro Neil Billington at the Cross Creek Blues Club show night at the Tin Hut in Tauherenikau tonight. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
Globe-trotting Kiwi bluesmen Mike Garner and Neil Billington will take the stage at the Tin Hut as guest headliners at the Cross Creek Blues Club show night tonight.
Club spokeswoman Linda Sorensen said the show bill also features a support programme from club members, including Honky Tonk Heroes, Freda Mae,Salt of the Earth, Mike Dew, KB and the Roosters, and Pat McKenna, Mike Dew, and KB and the Roosters with a tribute to BB King.
She said Garner was a renowned Bay of Plenty-based acoustic blues guitarist and recording artist, who has performed extensively at festivals and toured throughout New Zealand, Australia, Britain, Europe, Japan, Nepal, New Caledonia and the Cook Islands.
Garner has lived in New Zealand since 1988 and had since carved out a reputation as one of the most experienced blues performers in the country.
He has a discography of nine recordings dating back to 2005's Any Road Up, with a cut from his 2007 14-track album Cad's Alley winning airtime on the American House of Blues Hour, hosted by Dan Ackroyd. Another track from the same album, Louisiana Hurricane, was third in the Americana section of the 2007 International Song Competition in Nashville and was the only finalist in the contest from the Southern Hemisphere.
Garner also appeared at the Himalayan Blues Festival in Kathmandu in 2009, about which a documentary, titled Kathmandu Blues, was shot and released two years later, and alongside Australian guitarist Nick Charles opened the 2010 Mission Estate Concert for a crowd of 25,000 ahead of fellow performers The Four Tops, The Temptations, The Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, and Jimmy Barnes.
Last year and this year he toured Japan with vaunted blues harp player Billington, who has himself also shared a stage with the Rodger Fox big band, and a slew of jazz combos and electric blues bands, and folk and roots groups.
Wellington-based Billington has performed as part of the Mike Garner Band as well, and also leads his own group, The Neil Billington Band, during regular shows in the capital city.
