Barry Leef has been successfully making music all of his life. In the mid-60's he was the vocalist and rhythm guitarist in The Simple Image. The Simple Image scored a No 1 Hit with Spinning Spinning Spinning in 1968 and also had chart success with Two Kinds Of Lovers (#11), The Little Bell That Cried (#9), Grooviest Girl In The World (#3), Ulla (#21) and Michael And The Slipper Tree (#7).
Today ex-pat Kiwi Barry Leef has one of Australia's best known voices having featured in over 170 TV and radio advertising commercials during 20 years as Sydney's number one session singer. He also fronted Aussie bands Bakery and Supermarket and led the in-house band at the Sydney's Musician's Club for ten years. He has travelled the world working with Frank Zappa, George Duke, Tom Jones, Elvin Bishop and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter to name a few.
Dave Guillemot and long-time friend Barry Leef grew up in Blenheim both singing in local bands. Barry continued his singing career and Dave became involved in the music industry working in sales and marketing positions with Polygram in NZ and BMG in Australia. Dave returned to NZ in the late 90's and he has successfully turned his hand to songwriting. Dave's experiences and memories of living overseas were the inspiration for him to write the music and lyrics of Land Of The Long White Cloud.
Land Of The Long White Cloud was arranged, engineered and produced by Sid Limbert at his Snout Recording Studio In Picton. The top shelf musicians include Barry Leef (rhythm guitar, vocals and harmonies), Bruce Windleburn (lead guitar), Sid Limbert (acoustic and bass guitar) and Fred Limbert (drums).
Father and son duo, Victor and Dave Drollett have been playing the club/pub circuit around Sydney for the past six years under the name of “2Fold”. Victor and Dave heard Barry Leef performing Land Of The Long White Cloud as part of his set and expressed an interest in recording the song in te reo Maori. Hira Te Rangi Pumamao translated the song from English into Maori and Iwi Radio is already playing Aotearoa.