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It's widely believed that Shona Laing retired from music years ago. But the self-confessed "archetypal hippy", who shot to the top of the charts in the 80s with her lament to the cursed Kennedy clan, says music is in her blood and she'll keep making it, so long as it's on her terms. "I admit that I made an attempt to get away from it all in the early 90s just because it had been so difficult. But music is in me," she says.
Laing became a household name when she was only a teenager after appearing on the television talent show, New Faces, in the early 70s. It was followed by a seven-year stint in London, but she returned home in the mid 80s poised to release her breakthrough single (Glad I'm) Not a Kennedy.
Although the song earned her a Pater Award across the Tasman, New Zealanders were slow to catch on and it wasn't until English producer, Peter Wilson, stepped in and remixed it that it got picked up by Kiwi radio, soaring to number two in the charts. Laing has never managed to recapture that commercial success of the 80s.
But, if the truth be told, that's exactly how she likes it - and while the release of her last album, Pass The Whisper, slipped by with little fanfare in 2007, she's spent the past year-and-a-half touring New Zealand to sell-out audiences. "It doesn't matter that the whole country doesn't know about it. It's really only important that the 100-odd people coming on the night know," she says. She doesn't elaborate on the finer details of what forced her to take time out of the music business, but the 53-year-old - often referred to as the country's first female singer-songwriter says it is hard to escape the fact that it's still a male-dominated industry.
"When I was in the States in 1990, there was only one woman lawyer in the American music industry in a position of power that wasn't a personal assistant or a secretary or an A&R assistant, there to calm down the artist. "The other day we were checking out the independent chart and of the top 50 there were four women.
Sharon O'Neill once said in one of her songs, 'It's who you know, you know' and I think never a truer word was spoken." Laing says it's "incredibly frustrating" that New Zealand-born singer-songwriters such as Ladyhawke, who has just been nominated for an NME Award in London, are doing so well but had to move overseas to be recognised. "I think it's an aspect of New Zealand's character - we're still not confident enough to accept decisions and impressions about things without getting the okay from Australia or America."
But having said that, music has been good to the singer and although she's now taken up painting to help her relax, there's no chance of her swapping her guitar for a paint brush. Although Laing's new songs are rarely blasted on the commercial airwaves, she's set to return to Womad next month, an event she considers a privilege to play.
"Festivals like this are absolutely crucial because seeing world music in those environments makes it accessible. A lot of baby-boomers get off on that aspect of it. There's a wealth of incredible music at Womad."
Having long ditched city living for the Coromandel, Laing says she completely understands why people prefer to sit back and enjoy music in comfort. "I've been playing a lot of wineries recently and, excuse the pun, there's a real thirst for music in that kind of setting. It's that generation who grew up with rock and roll. Even though they're getting on now, music is in their blood and they don't want to let that aspect of their lives go."
* Shona Laing plays at Womad, March 13 to 15 in Taranaki.