Don McGlashan has played drums, horns, guitars and PVC pipes, created memorable songs with Blam Blam Blam, The Mutton Birds and as a solo artist, and won a run of awards for his soundtrack work. As Nick Bollinger puts it in this backgrounder, his songs are good for occasions big and small. 

This NZBC profile finds singer/songwriter Shona Laing as a 17-year-old in the seventh form (now year 13) at Hutt Valley High, distracted from study by an impending music career. Laing had shot to national prominence with her performances on the Studio One talent show, had a hit with her Henry Fonda-inspired single '1905' and supported American singer Lobo. She is already a guarded interviewee while her school mates are unsure what to make of her success. Lobo is effusive in his praise and there are performances of '1905' and Roberta Flack's 'Killing Me Softly'.  

The artists profiled in this edition of the TVNZ Māori show share a heritage and the vicissitudes of life as professional musicians, but their fields and approaches to making music differ markedly. Entertainer Bunny Walters is rebuilding a career that became derailed after initial success with his hit 'Brandy'. Opera singer Richard Haeata is looking to make his way in a largely Pākehā world which he finds alienating in its individuality. And singer-songwriter Mahinārangi Tocker celebrates her gender and Māori identity but has little use for the music industry.

Singer Moana Maniapoto discusses her evolution as a Māori musician in this episode from a series for high school music students. After first singing in public on the marae and learning to harmonise at school, she paid her way through university by singing in nightclubs. She describes her epiphany in a Detroit church as she realised that she needed to sing Māori songs rather than keep trying to emulate American soul and r'n'b divas. An acoustic performance of 'Hine Te Iwaiwa' (from her Toru album) is followed by a demonstration of traditional instruments. 

California born, singer songwriter Reb Fountain arrived in NZ by boat with her family aged 11. After playing in bands in Dunedin and Christchurch, she headed overseas where she studied jazz singing in Seattle and lived in New York and London. Now based in Auckland, she released her first solo album Like Water in 2006 and her second, Holster in 2008 (which included 'January's Well' — a preliminary finalist in the 2008 APRA Silver Scrolls). In partnership with director Anton Wood, Fountain has produced a series of distinctive music videos.

Love Soup was a high school duo formed by singer-songwriter Bic Runga and guitarist Kelly Horgan. After coming third in the Smokefree Rockquest, they were picked up by Trevor Reekie’s Pagan Records. This video is one of the only things Love Soup did, as they were overtaken by Runga’s burgeoning solo career. Shortly to be signed by major label Sony, her debut hit single (and APRA Silver Scroll winner) ‘Drive’ was just months away. Aged just 19, Runga already looks and sounds remarkably assured as she sings about a lost friendship, to a mystical CGI cipher.

Artists Prepare was a series of six programmes made by the NFU and screened in the Kaleidoscope programme on TV2 during July and August 1980. It featured prominent performance-based artists of the time with each episode exploring their particular creative process and performances of their work. The subjects were: Limbs Dance Company, composer Chris Cree Brown, mime artists Robert and Jane Bennett, songwriter-singer David Ngatae, poets Sam Hunt and Gary McCormick and singer Malcolm McNeill.

In this episode from a series for secondary school music students, James Reid (from The Feelers) and his brother Donald (a singer-songwriter who has co-written several Feelers songs) recall their school days when music making was frowned on by guidance counsellors rather than encouraged by projects like this one. Armed with acoustic guitars and a piano, they play excerpts from four songs (‘Communicate’, ‘We Raised Hell’, ‘Fishing For Lisa’ and ‘Unleash the Fury’) and discuss their philosophy of songwriting which is “all about being in the moment”.

Acoustic singer-songwriter, Sarah Brown, seduced Blenheim as a teenager (recording her first demo at 12, writing her own music at 14 and then securing regular local gigs at bars and wineries at 17) before taking on the rest of the South Island and the world. In 2001, aged 18, the South Islander won the Ovation Rockshop songwriter of the year competition. Brown toured the country extensively afterwards and realised her "lifelong dream" in 2006 with the release of her self-titled debut album.

Kiwi soul sister Emma Paki made her mark with 1993 classic 'System Virtue'. The song earned the Whakatāne-born singer-songwriter a hat-trick (Most Promising Female Vocalist, Best Songwriter and Music  Video) at the 1994 NZ Music Awards, and also won her a live support slot for American songstress Sheryl Crow. Her award-winning debut album Oxygen of Love (1996) was a long time coming; it also included top five hit 'Greenstone', produced by Neil Finn. Paki began releasing further material in 2004.