A musical storyteller at ease with his instrument, his audience and his mission to locate, archive, learn and perform the folk and popular songs of New Zealand’s past and present, from our colonial and folk roots to the Kiwi music of today.

A solo, acoustic performance of songs of home, presented with humour and affection, spontaneity and musical skill.

40 years dedicated to celebrating New Zealand, its people and their stories.

His story:  The First Forty Years

Born more than 70 years ago in the Eketahuna Maternity Hospital. Allowed to freely grow up in a small-town New Zealand way: rugby at the domain, swimming at the river, treasure-hunting at the dump. At school, Gilbert and Sullivan, at home, Barry Crump. Shearing gangs, possum trapping, country roads and country pubs.

Palmy. First guitar, long hair and lectures. A short, shorts-and-walk-socks High School career.  Amateur dramatics and Hawera Folk Club. Auckland via the first Tahora Music Festival.

A musical apprenticeship in the folk clubs, cafes and markets of Auckland 1978 - 1984:  Cook Street Market, Poles Apart Folk Club and street music in Parnell Village and K. Road.

1983/4 while touring with Taranaki Sol was offered the chance to record ‘Time on the Road’ L.P. for City Folk Records, establishing the path to be followed for the next several years: hitch-hiking and busking Highways One to Ninety-One, taking solo shows of homegrown songs to the city centres and back-country edges of Godzone land.

Along the way, further recordings, including:

‘From the Edge’ (Folk Record of the Year 1987), ‘One For You’, ‘Songs Of Local Folk’ and ‘From The Tracks’ for broadcast on National Radio and released by Replay Radio on cassette, 1989-1996;   at Rowan Studios: ‘Home Is Where The Heart Is’ (with Cath Woodman) and ‘Shaky Isles’; 

with Gumboot Tango: the ‘Taranaki Top Ten’ and ‘Rattle Yer Dags’ cassettes and ‘Rubber Sole’ CD;  the ‘Past To The Present’ and ‘Here We Have A Land’ CDs, compiling the best of the National Radio recordings, the latter with newly recorded tracks.

In 1992 ‘When The Pakeha sings Of Home – a Source Guide to the Folk and Popular Songs of New Zealand’ for Godwit Press.

Several series of programmes for National Radio 1989 – 1997.

1995 saw the formation of Gumboot Tango, with studio owner Alan Muggeridge, plus his wife Janet and brother Steve, to record and perform the songs of Taranaki.  After Alan’s death in 2000 the band added Wayne Morris and continue to delight audiences all around New Zealand with their repertoire of originals and classic Kiwi folk, country and rock.

In this century Mike has found home and family in New Plymouth where he has retired after twenty-five years teaching guitar at local schools and privately, helping young people to find music and their muse through guitar and song. He now has more time available to continue locating and learning, researching and recording,  promoting and performing the folk and popular songs of New Zealand.

Wherever there is a will to hear our own stories and songs there will be a place for this seasoned performer.