New Year Honours: Midge Marsden shedding blood for blues

Midge Marsden's striving to give the audience more blues for their bucks has him playing the harmonica for hours until his lips bleed.

"I never short-change an audience, because I know people have paid good, honest money to come into your gig.

"You've got to give your best," the Auckland musician said yesterday, during a 15-night tour which is taking him from New Plymouth to Southland.

He said his being made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit after a 40-year career was "a tribute to all the unsung heroes who have been out there for years and who are still playing in a local hall at a 50th birthday or something".

Marsden was voted New Zealand Entertainer of the Year in 1990 and later his album Burning Rain went gold. His 40th anniversary plans include a "farewell tour" and a new album with a lot of original songs.

A recent alternative to the rigours of touring has been teaching the history of popular music at the Waikato Institute of Technology.

He draws on his formal study of blues music in Mississippi and a passionate hobby that led to his show Blues is News on Wellington radio station 2ZB for five years.

"I try to make it accessible for students. I want them to understand that modern music came from blues and jazz."