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They’re the band that added a Maori sway and Pacific swing to reggae, and now Herbs is being honoured by their industry peers.
The Auckland band that has produced eight albums and had 27 members over its 30 years is being inducted into the APRA New Zealand Music Hall of Fame at tonight’s Australasian Performing Rights Association’s Silver Scroll Awards.
APRA spokesperson Don McGlashan says the band broke down doors with their fusion of Pacific and Reggae sounds and the way they gave a voice to an emerging, politically-aware audience that had grown up with protests against the Springbok Tour, Bastion Point and French nuclear testing at Mururoa.
He says they gave a generation of young Maori and Pasifika musicians and songwriters a new path to follow, showing that original New Zealand music could be as culturally diverse as the people who make up the country.
Along with the award, five Herbs albums have been made available digitally for the first time – Homegrown, Light of the Pacific, Long Ago, Sensitive to a Smile, and What’s be Happen?
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