Dyson relishes Wairarapa country roots

Featherston singer-songwriter Sue Dyson is working on her latest single release. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Professional entertainer Sue Dyson is a Wairarapa girl who took the long road back to her home region and the country music cradle that helped launch her career.

Dyson first started singing as a 15-year-old with the Masterton Country Corral group under Poppa Johansson and after shifting to Auckland started working with covers bands, and as a backing singer with two Top 10 Kiwi recording artists.

About three years ago, the Makora College old girl returned home to Wairarapa with her young son, settling in Featherston and returning as well to her country roots with songs she penned, and through a syndicated country music radio show, An Hour of Country.

Her current single comes after an earlier release, How I'll Remember You, and she was today eager to return to the studio to complete a debut EP of original tunes.

Dyson was to lay down the vocal track on her latest song in the next fortnight at Stebbing Recording Centre in Auckland, where Howard Morrison and Patsy Rigger had also recorded.

The track will be then sent back to award-winning producer Simon Johnson to work his hit-making magic on the song at Hillbilly Hut in Sydney.

Dyson said she had also trained as a beauty therapist but over the years had won enough entertainment work to pay the bills. Her recording work helped introduce her to a wide range of genres, performers, bands, producers and agents then working in the City of Sails.

"I pretty much went straight into covers bands in Auckland from about 1990 and got other work because I used to take a little tape recorder with me to all the producers I could find, and ended up as a backing singer for Ngaire, who had a number one song with a re-release of To Sir With Love."

She appeared on The Good Morning Show as a solo artist and worked on other televised events, including the New Zealand Music Awards. Dyson travelled to perform at the 2014 Tamworth Country Music Festival and played an encore date at the festival last year as well.

For almost the past two years, she has been producing her radio show out of her small home studio, that features on radio stations in countries including New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. "I have come back to country and came back home to be close to family, really, and because I realised I can work on my music from anywhere."

She hoped to release the new single in May and said she was grateful to Gregory Studio and Hall in Greytown for their support with the upcoming release.

For more information go online to www.sue-dyson.com or www.anhourofcountry.com