Country-loving sisters setting up festival of music
Taranaki is getting its first outdoor country music festival thanks to four country-loving sisters - and it will come complete with a Kiwi version of Loretta Lynn’s Coal Miner’s Daughter.
Lynn Crawford-Putt and her sisters, Annie Crawford, Patty Flynn and Colleen Hall, are organising the Egmont Country Festival, which they say will be half a country music festival and half an open mic session.
Several country artists from around the country will be performing in Tikorangi, where the sisters grew up, along with Australian Laura Downing.
Main organiser Crawford-Putt got permission to use the music of Coal Miner’s Daughter to write a song about growing up a dairy farmer’s daughter in Tikorangi, which she plans to perform at the February festival. ’’‘‘I was really rapt to be given permission.’’
She has recorded three albums that she sells privately, with the latest one, Wanna Sing for You, including the Coal Miner’s Daughter rewrite, complete with the line, ‘‘I never thought of ever leaving Tikorangi.’’
Anybody will be able to get up on stage at the festival and ‘‘give it a go’’, she said. ‘‘I go down to Marton’s one every year and the atmosphere’s amazing, and the people are really cool and I really enjoy it, so why not [have one]?’’
It’s not just for country and western singers ‘‘who sing about their dog dying, their wife leaving and their horse going lame’’, said Anne Crawford, who had run the successful Country Festival in Marton for about 14 years.
There will also be country rock, blues and rock ‘n roll, but someone could even sing opera if they wanted, she said.
The event will run from Friday, February 2, 2018 to Sunday February 4.