Singer To Move To Australia

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32073, 22 August 1969, Page 3

Singer To Move To Australia

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

SYDNEY, August 21. The New Zealand singer, Miss Yolande Gibson, will move to Australia next year.

The 19-year-old singer will settle in Sydney in January under the terms of a deal between H.M.V. (N.Z.), Ltd, and New Zealand-born Graham Dent, of Prestige Ai-tists Proprietary, Ltd.

H.M.V., which holds Miss Gibson’s recording and management contract, turned down a $20,000 offer by Mr

Dewt to buy out the contract. Miss Gibson will remain signed to H.M.V. for five years but will live in Australia and be managed by Mr Dent. The singer, will however, make frequent visits to New Zealand for recording and television appearances.

Mr Graham Feasey, general manager of H.M.V., who has been negotiating with Mr Dent in Sydney, said in a statement today: “The only reason we turned down the $20,000 offer was because of our faith and confidence in Yolande’s career over, the next five years from a recording point of view.”

. Miss Gibson is in Sydney at the moment to make television and club appearances. By the time she returns to New Zealand on Sunday week she will have done 11 television shows.

Mr Dent, who brought Mass Gibson to Sydney for her present brief tour, said today she had been a “tremendous success.”

“I feel she has got a phenomenal amount of talent,” he said. “She has got so much going for her.” He was confident he could make her into one of Australia’s biggest stars. Mr Dent manages nine other New Zealand artists, including Sandy Edmonds. Recently he negotiated a five-year, $20,000 recording contract for the singer with R.C.A.