New section for Gold Guitars

The songs of some of country music’s newest and biggest artists may be heard at the MLT New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards in June.

The awards committee announced a new section, New Country, which is for artists performing songs recorded and commercially released by any artist in the past five years.

Awards convener Phillip Geary said the New Country section should appeal to fans of ‘‘pop country’’, which was gaining in popularity worldwide.

Pop country artists include Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban and Lady Antebellum.

‘‘We think it will encourage some of the younger artists that might not enter the gospel or traditional sections so it will give them something new to enter.

‘‘It’s for songs written in the last five years that are commercially available, so they have to be for sale. So they could cover one of the big artists from overseas or for example Jenny Mitchell, who has released a new album, could sing one of her songs.’’

Entry numbers to the new section were limited, and only New Country entries with a senior entrant are eligible for the Senior Gold Guitar Overall Award.

‘‘We’re not necessarily anticipating a younger audience because of the new section but we are anticipating younger entrants.

Entries for this year’s competition, which will be held on June 1-3, have opened.

‘‘We always have the first flurries of ones that come in because they want to get their entries in early and then they’re steady again until the end, so they have plenty of time to organise what they’re singing.’’