Positively George Street: a personal history of Sneaky Feelings and the Dunedin Sound Matthew Bannister Reed Books, $34.95, ISBN 0 7900 0704 5 The mythology tells us that Dunedin in the 1970s was a studious, quiet backwater, seemingly permanently becalmed…
Weavers of Song: Polynesian Music and Dance Mervyn McLean Auckland University Press, $79.95, ISBN 1 86940 212 X A companion volume to the same author’s Maori Music 1996: reviewed in our March 1998 issue), Mervyn McLean’s Weavers of Song…
Maori Music Mervyn McLean Auckland University Press $59.95 ISBN 1 86940 144 1 Likely to become the standard text on the subject for the foreseeable future, Melvyn McLean‘s Maori Music is the culmination of nearly 40 years of research, recording…
Crowded House: Something So Strong Chris Bourke Macmillan, $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 0886 8 Seven Voices: Tales of Madness and Mirth Mike Chunn Purple Egg Press, $29.95 ISBN 0 473 05021 8 In Crowded House: Something So Strong, Chris Bourke…
Malvina: A Biography of Dame Malvina Major David Jillett Harper Collins, $34.95, ISBN 186950 1810 Ana Hato raua ko Deane Waretini, Legendary recordings 1927-1949 Kiwi Pacific CD SLC‑242 National Library of New Zealand, CD $31.05, Cassette $18.90 Madam Butterfly Giacomo…
Kati au i konei compiled by Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal Huia Publishers, $24.95 This book contains texts, translations and explanatory notes for 15 waiata from Ngati Toarangatira and Ngati Raukawa. It is written in Maori and English, illustrated with photographs…
The Great New Zealand Songbook Les Cleveland, Godwit, Auckland, 1991, $29.95 Les Cleveland’s friendly and informal approach illuminates this collection of 60 New Zealand songs from early ballads to goldrush classics and Ruru Karaitiana’s ‘Blue Smoke’. An excellent introduction is…
Southern Voices; international singers of New Zealand Adrienne Simpson and Peter Downes, Reed Books, Auckland, 1992, $45 The timing of Adrienne Simpson’s and Peter Downes’s admirable Southern Voices could hardly be more propitious. With opera in New Zealand once again approaching the level…
The Oxford History of New Zealand Music John Mansfield Thomson Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1991, $69.95 This eagerly awaited book will take a high place in the company of recent reference works. The only cause for regret is that the publisher…