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Tyson Smith

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Music we hold — on our catalogue

The majority of our Wellington CD collection is available from our Te Awe Branch in Brandon St, or able to be reserved for free from our Distribution Centre in Johnsonville.

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Tyson Smith is a guitarist, singer, songwriter originally hailing from Manuka Bay on New Zealand’s east coast, though his last decade of musical meanderings has taken him from Christchurch to the Caribbean, Central America, New York, Europe and most recently Wellington where he’s currently based.

Initially starting out on homemade polystyrene guitars and miming along with Money For Nothing for unsuspecting family friends he began learning on the real thing at age 9. It wasn’t long before he was regularly making the 100km journey to Christchurch for lessons as well as performing duets with his sister, flautist Tamara Smith.

Tyson relocated to Christchurch for his final high school years and to attend the CPIT Jazz School, continuing to immerse himself in the local music scene. In 2003, after performing around Christchurch in various ensembles ranging from pseudo-flamenco duos to 8-piece funks bands, Tyson decided it would be a good idea to invest in a cheap Tuxedo and fly to New Orleans. Over the next 3 years he could be found performing in showbands afloat the Caribbean or Mediterranean, or soaking up influences in Central America, Cuba or The States. During a few months in New York he took lessons from some of the city’s top guitarists including Mike Stern, John Abercrombie, Wayne Krantz and Ben Monder.

Since relocating to NZ’s capital Wellington in 2006 he has been busy working on his own original music as well as performing for productions in both TV and Theatre and for artists such as singer Hollie Smith. He has also recently been playing guitar and banjo in Mundi, a world music group lead by his sister Tamara.

Tyson Smith and Moog aficionado Ed Zuccollo play songs from ‘The Hollow Tree’ for an RNZ session…

Cover image

Nick Bollinger reviews ‘The Hollow Tree’ on The Sampler

Cover sourced from Bandcamp. Text courtesy of Amplifier. Used with permission.

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