Six of the best

The New Zealand Music Hall of Fame has been contentious from first inductees Johnny Devlin and Jordan Luck in 2007 on. Many people complain certain eras or important figures have not been represented. If you’re a teenager, you might look at an old inductee and say, “Who?” If you’re of pensionable age and some young upstart in their forties is acknowledged, you might say the same.

Here are this year’s inductees.

We do the “Who?” for you.

JOHNNY COOPER

The country singer known as “the Māori Cowboy” was an unlikely figure to launch rock’n’roll in New Zealand. But his version of Bill Haley’s in 1955 was the first of this new style recorded here. Neither the jazz musicians playing, he also recorded our first original rock’n’roll song.