Shona Laing

Shona Laing has always had an ambiguous, sometimes turbulent relationship with the music industry (who hasn't). Integrity and respect have always been non-negotiable for Shona.

She is an intelligent and hugely talented singer/songwriter who surfaced as a result of extensive television exposure on the show New Faces in 1972 with her song 1905 (dedicated to Henry Fonda.

Still a teenager she collected gold discs, Rata Awards and represented NZ (twice) in the Tokyo World Song Festival before relocating to the UK where, amongst other things, she was a member of Manfred Manns Earth Band.

Following her return to New Zealand she released a number of albums for both Pagan and Sony, as well as extensively touring Australia (Glad Im Not A Kennedy was a number nine single there) and the USA where she supported Erasure.Shona has an extensive catalogue of material that not only spans three decades but continues to endure, and endures well! She has currently completed her new album "Pass the Whisper".

This is Shona's comments about her new albumn - "Some old songs are revisited including Kennedy and Soviet Snow. Other songs are as old but have only really found their place recently. It is all played, acoustic guitar-based, with the colour of penny whistle, Northumbrian pipes, bhodran (the Celtic drum), acoustic upright bass, brushes vocals.

The process of finding the players and the place and time has been so natural, no industry pressure at all and I feel it is the best work process I've ever been through"