Respected music manager Lorraine Barry dies
Lorraine Barry in 2018. The international music manager has died at home in Auckland.
Photo:
RNZ / Yadana Saw
New Zealand's music community is paying tribute to a well-respected manager who has died.
Lorraine Barry came from Northern Ireland but made her home in New Zealand managing Sir Dave Dobbyn, Tom Scott, and groups such as the Avantdale Bowling Club and Home Brew.
She was a board member for the New Zealand Music Commission and a mentor of developing artists.
During her 16 years as international marketing manager for Virgin Records in the UK, she worked with international artists including John Lee Hooker, Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers, Ice T, Soul II Soul and the Spice Girls.
Sir Dave Dobbyn and Lorraine Barry at the Silver Scrolls in 2019.
Photo:
RNZ
In an interview with RNZ's The Mixtape in 2018, Barry said music was a personal thing that said so much about someone and she liked to stay in the background.
"I think that's my role as a manager... My musical tastes have sort of been mine and people don't really know much about me and now you are totally exposing me to the world."
Barry said she grew up in "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland - the conflict from 1968 to 1998 between Protestants and Catholics over whether Northern Ireland should stay part of the UK or become part of Ireland.
Barry said it began when she was about 10, and nightlife was restricted, forcing teenagers out of Belfast and into the suburbs.
This influenced her exposure to music and in her mixtape the first song she chose was the 1980 hit
My Perfect Cousin
by The Undertones, a rock band from Derry in Northern Ireland - partly for the accent.
A death notice online said Lorraine Elizabeth Barry passed away peacefully at home in Auckland after a short illness.
"Loving partner to Ross, daughter to Betty and sister to Denise. Lorraine will be sadly missed and remembered by brother in law Kenny, her nephews Robert, Philip, Andrew and David and the wider family circle."
The notice said a service would be held in her home town of Whitehead, north of Belfast, at a later date.
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