I grew up in, and still live in, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, a satellite city of the capital Wellington. Like your average satellite city, it can feel like a cultural vacuum, full of sprawling suburbia – if you want to see a gig or eat fancy cuisine, you go into the capital. Despite that, Lower Hutt has produced some famous people – my sister’s year group at intermediate school has already produced an Oscar winning actress (Anna Paquin), an Olympic track silver medallist, and a woman who was a member of parliament in her twenties.
Yet, our musical legacy is underwhelming, even while our bogan cousins in Upper Hutt contributed New Zealand’s best loved song of the 20th century:
Our biggest musical product of Lower Hutt is probably Brooke Fraser, who has produced some mainstream hits in New Zealand, but who is best known internationally for her worship songs. But for a city of more than 100,000 people our output isn’t much.
Two bands I’ve covered on this site recently are Buffalo Springfield and the Eagles. It’s not difficult to find links between the two groups – both were harmony-laden and dabbled in folk and country, and between the two band’s’ tenures, Richie Furay and Randy Meisner collaborated in Poco. There’s also another link – Stephen Stills, Bernie Leadon, and Don Felder all spent their youth in the same city- Gainesville, Florida.
But amazingly, they weren’t the only products of the city. Felder learned some of his guitar tricks from Duane Allman, who lived nearby and who played in the town’s battle of the band’s along with the other future stars, along with his brother Gregg. And when Felder turned to guitar teaching, his student who’d go onto achieve fame was Tom Petty. Petty’s band Mudcrutch included Tom Leadon, Bernie’s brother, while all of the original Heartbreakers were Gainesville locals.
I’m sure other small cities have also punched above their weight. How does your locale match up?
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Brooke Fraser, eh? I tell you, I really love Something in the Water. Great tune. The album, Flags, is pretty good, too. Haven’t heard much else of hers, though…
Anyhoo, I’m from Glasgow… and we’ve never really been short of good musical acts over the years!
I’m amazed you’ve heard of her – never realised she made it overseas. I haven’t heard her albums although I think my wife has one. My sister’s friends went to piano lessons with her and her dad was an All Black winger.
Yeah, it was actually my wife that discovered the track… she was singing it and I asked what it was. Great tune. She played over here after the release of Flags and I think she even opened for Wet Wet Wet a few years back (though I may be imagining that and I’m too lazy to Google it just now!!).
My wife saw our other suburb celebrity yesterday – Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) on his way to school.
I liked him in Hunt for the Wilderpeople!
I was born in Burlington (where Finger 11 is probably the biggest musical export) – but have lived in Kingston for years, where The Tragically Hip have a street named after them!
The pride of Canada! 🇨🇦
Watt and the Wildcats.
Are you talking about Mike Watt or someone different?
I grew up in a small prairie town. Watt used to play local barn dances when I was kid and before i was born. Totally a local hero.
Neil Young and I were born in the same place. My town was 2 hrs south from Winnipeg on the N Dakota border.