BIOGRAPHY

Born 18.11.1948
Early life.
First sang at a concert at age 8 in the Pokeno Hall.
Lead roles in musicals at Pukekohe High School ( Mikado, Gypsy Baron ).
First girl to be allowed to take Technical Drawing at high school in NZ. 
1965 - left for Auckland to learn engineering drafting (at Kingston, Reynolds, Thom & Allardice).
Lead roles in various musicals in Auckland until getting a professional job as band singer with Merv Thomas Octet. Back-up singing for TV's Happen Inn and other session work. Became a music copyist for various arrangers. Band singer with the Miff Smith Trio. 
1971 - got a spot as cabaret artist on the Northern Star passenger liner to UK. Moved there and survived firstly by temp drafting for engineering companies in London.
Formed a group with two London singers as Three's a Crowd. Various session work including TV's Cilla Black Show, Les Dawson Show and others. Left Three's a Crowd for obvious reasons. (Three was definitely a crowd by then.)
1973 - Worked for Cliff Richard  for 1973 tour (Gospel and Secular). 
1974 - Worked for Cat Stevens for 1974 tour (Bamboozle). 
1975 - Worked for the Kinks in the musical Preservation Act 2. Played West End, London, and toured US with this show in lead female role of Belle. 
1976 - Moved to Texas with new partner, lighting designer, production manager, Bill Thompson.
Began writing songs and recording demos.
1977 - Moved to LA with now husband Bill. Song writing experience with BMI contract songwriters.  
1978 - Contacted to work the Van Morrison Tour. Met John Rugis, production manager and sound engineer for Bill Graham Enterprises.
1979 - divorced Bill Thompson. 
1980 - Remarried to John. Left the business to move back to NZ and start a family.

Mid life.
Motherhood. Raising daughter Skaya. Study of various universal teachings. Gnostic, Zen, Tao, Indian and Islamic Sufi traditions.
1982 - Played the alternative Eva in NZ touring production of Evita. 
1983 - A son, Taylor, is born. Briefly, joined blue-grass group Gentle Annie.
Left all performance to concentrate on family, writing, composition and demo recording.

1991 - Moved back to US to live in East Lansing, Michigan and recorded first CD with John, Reconciliation: the company of saints and sages.
1996 - Moved to Boise, Idaho. Began a period of concentration on poetry writing. Produced eight handmade books of poems.
2001 - Returned again to NZ.
2003 - Recorded CD Cave Songs with John engineering and mastering.
2004 - Began a period of writing music and scripts for children to perform including musicals, Home Free, Island Dreams, and River Songs. Also much poetry, writing and readings, and a beginning of an interest in Hebridean Mouth Music. Recorded CD of original mouth music with bassist, Neil Hannan entitled Traffic in Gold. More children's music with environmental themes including CD for early childhood, Daisy Face. Presented at conferences on environmental education and early childhood development. Produced a CD for singer-songwriter Diane Ponzio (In the Middle). Wrote and performed in an autobiographical musical for Linn Lorkin, entitled Chanson which was performed at a small venue every month for a year or so. Worked with Linn and Hershal Herscher on nationwide tour, Linn Lorkin's Kiwiana (co-produced this album).
2012 - Wrote and toured nationally with an original musical show called Do or Di: a Whodunnit Musical Game Show featuring songs of Doris Day and Dinah Shore. Much work with Photoshop on CD art, and graphics for posters and promotion for self and others.
2013 - Turned 65 and tiredly, but happily, retired.
 
Late life.
Began illustrating scripts and making them into children's books using Photoshop.

Thinking about all this inspires me to offer up some thanks here and there.
 
When I was 14 or 15,  Mr. Brown, the tech drawing teacher at Puke High, agreed to have me, a girl! sit in the back of his normal classes to learn the subject. My mother was also on the staff and I think she leaned on the system somewhat. Mr. Brown was thrilled to get to teach a girl. In fact, we recruited some other girls as well and he taught  4 of us in the end. We were the first girls in NZ to be allowed to take this subject in high school. What a lovely man he was.
Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Frank Poore was the director the Light Opera Company in Auckland for years. When I just turned 17 Mum took me to Auckland to audition for him for a pantomime. For the next 3 years he cast me in his shows, always directed by Alma Woods. They were very supportive and encouraging. Thanks, Alma and Frank.

Bernie Allen, an Auckland band leader, arranger, teacher, and saxophonist. The first friend I had with whom to talk about music in a deep way. He taught me how to be a copyist too, a very very useful skill to have. Thank you, Bernie.

Thank you, Miff Smith. For two and a half years I sat on his band stand 5 nights a week and listened to him play piano. He was a very good player. I was lucky. He fired me in the end for some petty thing. He was ready for a new face on his bandstand. But it was he who encouraged me to try for a job on a ship to get to UK. He'd been a session player in England and played with Tommy Dorsey (I think?) and he told me about this thing called a "session singer" which I subsequently became.

Beverley Drake, a flatmate from Auckland, rescued me when I was very ill not long after arriving in London. She gave me a bed and looked after me. Thank you, Beverly. I've tried to find you for years. Are you still in London? You had a sister called Barbara I remember.

C.S. Nott was a writer who wrote about the Gurdjieff system. I wrote to him and subsequently met him. He introduced me to the my first esoteric study group. It was the beginning of a lifelong quest. Thanks, Mr. Nott.

I met Linda Lewis when she was the support act for Cat Stevens on his 1974 Bamboozle Tour.
We became friends, she, the lark, me, the bluebird. I loved singing with her and her band live and on recordings. She's a most enlightened songwriter. Her music was the happiest and most joyful I'd ever been inside of live. Thank you, Linda.
 
Max Middleton was in her band at the time playing keyboards. We became good buddies and I love him still though it's a long time since I last saw him. He's sent me his recent albums. Which are just like him. He played on Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow. He's not only the best but the sweetest man and I miss him. Thank you, Max.

I met Bill Thompson on the Kinks' Preservation Act 2 Tour in 1975. He was the front man and lighting designer. After visiting him in Texas I couldn't face another minute in the UK and so I abandoned a growing career in London and moved there to rock and roll central (the home of Showco) and my very own piano. He was and is still, a very generous man. We married and he was sometimes a good husband sometimes pretty crazy as all our friends knew him to be. But we all love him anyway. Thank you, Bill, for rescuing me from the darks of England and setting me up in the brights of Texas. 

I met a girl in Dallas called Denise Koval. I couldn't work when I first went to Texas as I had no Green Card. But I helped out Denise in her greenhouses. She and her partner at the time used to import plant material from Mexico and when a truck load would arrive I'd help with potting them up. They paid me in Mexican rugs which I still have. You awoke in me my love affair with plants. I'd loved them as a child. Thank you, Denise. 

Jimmy Page Henderson, (late of Syncrolite Systems) it was you who rang me when you heard Van Morrison was looking for a singer. And there and then, I met John. Thank you, Jimmy.

After meeting up with John my life took a turn.  A good turn. We realized that we were finished with the world of rock and roll. We returned to NZ to build a family life and to embark on the quest for a deeper knowledge of the inner life. We studied a number of different traditions with a number of different teachers. Reconciliation is a musical record of this time and of what we uncovered for and within ourselves. Eternal gratitude is due all those who guided, and still do guide us, on the path of return. 

Later, but not too late.

Thank you Linn and Hersh for a hellava lot of great laughs. Did we have fun or what?

And even later... 2021 Covid lock downs! And I became proficient in Reason. Outcome? 43 or plus songs recorded. 4 new cd albums worth. NOWHERE TO GO BUT HERE, OUT OF THE BLUE, ON THE EDGE, and ARTSONGS. Some of these were older songs and 20 new ones.

I also learned Premiere Pro and made a couple of videos. BUBBLERAP with my grandkids, viewable on the children's page and SERAPHINA BREATHES which I made to go with one of the songs from ON THE EDGE.

Finally, finally? Really?

Maybe, who knows, I wrote a new musical for kids about saving the birdlife and other endangered creatures that live in our local Kaipara, South Head, Muriwai area.
BIRDSONGS - 9 songs and a script with the birds discussing their survival issues at a Conference of the Birds beside Lake Rototoa on South Head.

............................................................................fill in this line in the future. Their may well be one.