Reviews
House Concerts/Private Functions
An opportunity and unique experience - hosting one of New Zealand's top singer/songwriter's for your house concert or private function. Wayne Mason with longtime stagemate Clinton Brown, on bass/guitar and vocals.
Listener - Nick Bollinger "Good Sense"
"Wayne Mason's album is full of hits waiting to be heard"
The land has always been a looming presence in the songs of Wayne Mason. Just think of "Nature" the hit he wrote nearly 40 years ago for his teenage band The Fourmyula, enshrined in the "Nature's Best" series as this country's most loved anthem, with its images of trees and fallen leaves.
Sense Got Out - Waikato Times
"...12 masterpieces on the peculiarities of love" (Five stars)
In 1962 Wayne Mason formed his first band the Southern Auroras with school friends in Upper Hutt. Since then he's become best known for the creative musical input he has brought to The Warratahs, Rockinghorse and The Fourmyula. Indeed his best known tune, Nature, recorded with The Fourmyula in 1969 was voted a few years back as New Zealand's best loved song.
Sense Got Out - Graham Reid
"...another catalogue of rare songs by one of our finest songwriters"
Singer-songwriter Wayne Mason may be best (and in some circles only) known as the guy who wrote the Kiwi classic Nature for the Fourmyula (later covered by the Mutton Birds) -- but that was almost four decades ago and he has spent the intervening period crafting equally excellent material for the Warratahs (until '94), and now delivers them on a trickle of solo albums of which this is only the third in 12 years.
Sense Got Out - Nelson Evening Mail - Nick Ward
Wayne Mason occupies a special niche in the pantheon of great Kiwi songwriters.
He isn't overly prolific - this is just his third solo album - and few of his songs have become singalong anthems, but the quality is always there.
Every so often, he pops up with a grunty band behind him and delivers a new set of warm, tuneful meditations on celebrating and losing love.
Sense Got Out comes seven years after his last album, Same Boy, but eschews that album's commercial veneer for a cosier feel.
Between Frames - Capital Times - Donald Reid
Much has been said about Wayne Mason returning to his pop roots after years on the Warratahs highway. Sure it seems logical, this is the man who wrote ‘Nature’ after all. But the great songwriter has the ability to cross genre boundaries, and if it needs to proven again, Mason is a great songwriter.
Between Frames - Real Groove - Kevin Byrt - 1996
It’s hard to believe that after 30 years as the creative force behind three of New Zealand’s best known bands, this is probably the first time most of us have really heard of Wayne Mason. Worth the wait ? Most definitely. Mason’s 12 excellent compositions, Nigel Stone’s sympathetic production, along with three decades of hard-won experience have culminated in a world-class songwriter album.
Same Boy - The Evening Post - Karl du Fresne
The opening bars of the first track are reminscent of Lyle Lovett's Private Conversation, but the comparisons end there; Mason has no need to ape anyone else, and in any case his opening track, 'Cold Wind Bay' (with Sharon O'Neill) is a far better song than Lovett's. It sets the tone for an outstanding collection of heartfelt, touching songs that are rendered without artiface or affectation. If ever there were any doubts about Mason's status as one of the most gifted New Zealand troubadours, songs such as 'Cold Wind Bay' and 'Same Boy' will erase them.
Same Boy - The Herald - Review - Graham Reid
Wayne Mason also has a mainline to the heart and heartland, whether it be in days long ago with 60's band The Fourmyula, in the Warratahs or on his last solo album Between Frames. His new album Same Boy (Jayrem) finds him again on typically excellent form. Mason explores local, yet universal images and symbols of land, sea and sky. Titles alone tell part of the story: Cold Wind Bay, his of Turn Your Back on the Wind delivered now as lightly realised psychedelic-pop, and Nature, his Fourmyula hit previously resuscitated by the Muttonbirds which Mason her serves up as a back-porch ballad.
Same Boy - Listener - Article
Through Fallen Leaves
One of our greatest songwriters, Wayne Mason, continues his love affair with the shape and shadow of New Zealand. By Lindsay Rabbitt, Listener 2001
"I love New Zealand's physical nature," says Wayne Mason. "I adore the country. Recently, I hopped on a boat and then rode my bike over to Cape Farwell by myself. I just took two pairs of socks and a shirt and slept out on the beach. I had visited there before with the Warratahs in 1987, but it was like I'd never been there.
