Mike Harding is a New Zealand folk musician born on 16 July 1952, [1] now living in New Plymouth, Taranaki. [2]
Growing up in Eketāhuna, Harding practised his music in "the streets, markets and clubs of Auckland in the early 1980s", before he describes himself as having spent a "Time on the Road" decade all over New Zealand and parts of Australia and Britain. [3] In 1998 he created his tenth recording, "Past to the Present", described by Radio New Zealand as a "20 track exploration of NZ from north to south, its people and places, past and present." [2] and his first record available on CD. In 2008, he followed it by "Here We Have a Land", with a selection of New Zealand folk songs and his own original creations. [3]
Mike Harding has played at the Auckland Folk Festival several times, especially in the 1990s, [4] was a top performer at the Marlborough Folk Society's concerts in Blenheim, [5] as well as playing at other music festivals like New Plymouth's "TSB Bank Festival of Lights". [6] Since about 1995, Mike Harding also plays on and off as guitarist of the Gumboot Tango band, appearing regularly at events like the Taranaki International Arts Festival. [7]
In 1992 he also wrote "When the Pakeha Sings of Home", a source guide to the folk and popular songs of European New Zealanders, described as important in raising the profile of a little-studied part of New Zealand popular music history. [8] [9]