Representing selected New Zealand and overseas blues and roots musicians.
Garner and Harris are life-long blues musicians who live and work at opposite sides of the globe. Harris lives on England's south coast while Garner lives in Rotorua, New Zealand. It wasn't always that way. Twenty five years earlier, they jointly formed a very successful UK blues band, "The Dirt Road Blues Band", that opened for the likes of Chicago's Carey Bell and the UK's Chicken Shack, as well as performing and recording extensively. But in 1985, just as the momentum was building, Garner left for New Zealand with his family.
Skip forward twenty five years to February 2010, the friendship was rekindled when Harris made a highly successful tour of New Zealand, with the Mike Garner Band. Playing an infectious blend of electric blues at several NZ festivals, Garner and Harris also discovered that in the intervening years they had both also specialised in acoustic blues and roots music. Harris and Garner sing, play acoustic guitar and slide guitars, with Harris also offering mandolin and Garner the harmonica. Some of this they worked into the festival performances, featuring old time blues and some of Garner's original songs.
The last afternoon of the February NZ tour was spent in a recording studio, where the two recorded a handful of live tracks, illustrating the range of acoustic material they can cover. The two worlds came together again.
And it's two worlds in another sense, too. From the earliest recordings of blues, in the southern states of the USA, the music, the experiences, the sounds of African-Americans has conquered the globe. Garner and Harris fell in love with blues in their young teens, when two generations of the music's originators was touring and being fêted in Europe during the 1960s. Pre-war masters such as Son House, Big Joe Williams and post war giants, such as Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf made an enormous impression on Garner and Harris - as they did to other Brits who later went on to become some of rock music's biggest stars, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, Peter Green, and so on. From that decade onwards, blues, like jazz before it, was adopted and taken to heart by almost every country in the world. In the 21st century, first time American travellers are often surprised to find authentic blues being played in Europe, Asia, South America - as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Garner and Harris went on to perform with some of those originators (Harris has performed with Carey Bell, Jerry McCain, Phil Guy and others) and also the new generation (Garner has opened for or performed with Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Big Joe Louis, Hans Thessink, Jo Anne Kelly, Mike Cooper, Harry Manx and a long list of Australian blues 'names').
Garner and Harris meld life-long experience and appreciation of blues styles, authentic vocals and high order instrumental skills into an exciting acoustic music show.
