Back room chords and front porch harmonies: the Gazebo Girls play Alt country - short for alternative country (also known as Americana) - either way a term for the place where folk, blues, rock, bluegrass and country meet. Some songs are as old as the hills they came from, some were written just yesterday. Armed with a heap of contemporary and vintage songs, guitar, mandolin and more harmonies than you can shake a stick, their repertoire ranges from fragile and haunting songs that touch the heart, to down and dirty, rowdy and ragged songs with whiskey in their bellies and mud on their boots.
Penni Bousfield and Janet Muggeridge began performing as the Gazebo Girls in 2011. Appearances so far include Singer Songwriters Night in the Famous Spiegeltent during the 2011 Taranaki International Arts Festival, the Taranaki International Village Stage for the Rugby World Cup, 2012 and 2013 New Plymouth TSB Festival of Lights and the 2012 Wellington Folk Festival. They have opened for American singer Kristina Olsen, Hobnail and The Eastern.
A Gazebo Girls’ concert runs from traditional working songs and folk ballads to songs by the likes of Bill Monroe, Gram Parsons, John Hiatt and Gillian Welch along with a growing number of originals.
Their CD The Ragged Edge was released in late 2012.
