40 Below Blues

Wellington’s harmonica virtuoso, Neil Billington, teams up with Tauranga bluesman Mike Garner to present a show of old-time and Chicago blues.

Mike Garner is a well known blues singer and songwriter with nearly 40 years experience. He has performed extensively in festivals in both Australia and here in New Zealand as well as touring the UK, Europe, Japan, Australia, Nepal and the Pacific. Mike plays acoustic, electric and resonator guitars, harmonica and occasionally mandolin and other stringed instruments too! His latest CD, “Don’t Mind The Rain” was recorded in NZ and Japan in 2019, where he collaborated with leading Japanese blues players.

Neil Billington, from Wellington, is one of NZ's finest exponent of the blues harmonica, able to cover the blues greats, on acoustic or amplified harmonica. Neil made his fourth visit to Japan in 2017, where he played with some of their finest blues and jazz musicians, such as former Chicago-based guitarist Shun Kikuta, boogie pianist Rei "Ms Lee" Kanehira, and acoustic guitar virtuoso Yuji Hamaguchi. Neil was invited by the Hohner company, the world's leading harmonica manufacturer, to be a guest star performer at the company's Tokyo festival earlier in 2018, where he demonstrated his skills on both the blues harp and the chromatic harmonica - a rare accolade.