KIRK HARGRAVES/Things
John Hore Grenell at his home in White Cliffs, Canterbury in 2014.
New Zealand country legend John Hore Grenell has died aged 78.
Former wife and lifelong friend Deirdre Lusby said Grenell died of a heart attack on Wednesday night.
“The family is planning a private farewell to John and a public farewell with a musical celebration of his life will be held at a later date,” she said.
Grenell made his first record in 1963 and was best known for his 1990 version of Welcome to our World, which was featured in a Toyota advertising campaign.
READ MORE:
* ‘Legend of Sumner’: 93-year-old surfer and beloved music teacher dies
* From Gore’s Gold Guitars to Opening for Country Legend Bonnie Raitt
* Wellington Photographer Wins New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year Award
He also represented New Zealand at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, Tennessee in 1966 and 1974.
Fellow band member, producer and friend Dave Maybee said Grenell was a shy country boy with an incredible voice.
“He was quite a shy star,” he said.
KIRK HARGRAVES/Things
Grenell loved horses and bred Appaloosans.
“He was blessed with a vote of one in a million. His voice was really special. He became famous very early and gained national and international fame at an early age.
“He had a hard time with that. He was actually a simple ranch boy from Ranfurly.’
Grenell had a farm in Whitecliffs, Canterbury and raised horses.
“He ended up on a small farm where he bred Appaloosa horses. He built quite a reputation with horses. He was a great rider himself,” Maybee said.
“That side of him was very close to nature.
“A lot of his songs were about that and how we should care for and preserve our world.”
Maybee recalled Grenell recording the vocals for a 14-song album in just one day.
“Working with John in a studio was very special. He was one of the few singers who could really sing in harmony,” he said.
“There were no breaks. He just sang. And he would get it in one or maybe two takes.
KIRK HARGRAVES/Things
Grenell had a vote of one in a million, said friend Dave Maybee.
Grenell was born in 1944 in Ranfurly, central Otago, according to biographies of the New Zealand Music Committee and Christchurch City Libraries.
He grew up on the family farm in Kyeburn and attended Otago Boys’ High School in Dunedin. He participated in a series of talent shows in the early 1960s and signed to Joe Brown Records in 1964 under the name John Hore.
Grenell toured the world in the 1960s, releasing a string of hit albums and singles. By the age of 19 he had sold 100,000 records.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he took a break from the music industry to build a tourism business in Queenstown. In the late 1980s, he returned to the music industry under the name John Grenell and released more hits.
In 2009, he suffered a stroke that initially left him unable to remember the lyrics to his songs. But he said in 2014 that the old songs were slowly coming back to him.