Luke Hurley

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Luke Hurley is an independent New Zealand guitarist and singer-songwriter, who works mostly outside the confines of the music industry. He was born in Kenya on the 31st of August,1957 and moved with his family to Gore in Southland when aged 12. He achieved a degree of early success on student radio with the song 'Mona Lisa' in the early 80's at Otago University in Dunedin, (N.Z.)

Growing up in Kenya and Zanzibar exposed Luke to Arabic, African and Indian styles of music which have influenced him to this day. Mississippi John Hurt was also an influence. Lukes current style of playing has also been described as tabla meets Irish rock. Another comparison with singer-songwriters might be with Bruce Cockburn and Ron Sexsmith who are also prolific but outside the commercial mainstream.

His song "Albatross" is one of many much loved show stoppers in his 25+yrs years worth of repertoire. His idiosyncratic but perceptive songs are admired by many and in demand for recording by other artists such as Tracie De Jongwho has recorded his "Fait Accompli" song.

He is now based in Auckland, NZ and has toured with artists such as Michelle Shocked and Marianne Faithfull but is more likely to be found at fringe festivals or even busking. He has self recorded the equivalent of about 8 albums since the early 80's. The most recent, High Risk features 17 songs recorded at some of Aucklands best sound studios. It was very well engineered by Steve Garden and cleanly mastered by Chris Chetland at Kog Studio. The album was reviewed by Liz Barry who said it.. "captivates the listener with gentle melodies, exquisite guitar technique and simple yet sometimes complex rhythms."

High Risk was released in 2000 and is perhaps the most well recorded example of Lukes' capabilities. High Risk was strongly supported by Dr Greg Finucane (Neuropsychiatrist) who is credited as Executive Producer and who was also a member of two bands 'The Clear' and 'Thin Red Line' previously. High Risk took 4 years to record and complete. Luke had suffered from depressionor related illness and the album was part of his recovery process. The album is named High Risk because for many of the people who supported the project it was a high risk as to whether the album would succeed. The previous link is to an 30 minute audio interview that played on NZ National Radio in September 2003 and features that story and many of the songs on the album.

His own website features samples of his music and much more background information. In January 2007 he was signed by Monkey Records where he was described as "New Zealand's most famous busker". He is to be a featured artist at the 2007 Auckland Arts Festival.Luke performs often at festivals and was described as "one of New Zealand's great unknown musicians " by organisers at the Wellington Busking Festival.