Jan Cooper


Singer Jan Cooper was 30 years old and a married mother of two when she got her big break after EMI New Zealand bosses attended her gig in the Hutt Valley in 1984 and subsequently signed her to the label.

Over the next few years she released two albums with EMI, one produced by down under industry icon Peter Dawkins, and in the 1990s recorded two more in Australia.

On tour in the late 1980s. Left to right: Tom Sharplin, Bunny Walters, Maori Volcanics singer Robbie Ratana, Tania Rowles, Jan Cooper.
Napier's Daily Telegraph reports Jan Cooper’s success at the NZ New Year Awards in Country Music in the city, January 1984.
Jan Cooper on her way to winning the major prize at the NZ New Year Awards in Country Music, Napier, January 1984. Renny Hantler is on guitar.
Michael Roycroft and Jan Cooper circa 1991
Jan Cooper at the NZ Gold Guitar Awards in Gore
Jan Cooper during the photoshoot for her 1985 debut album No Looking Back.
The cover photos for Jan Cooper's sophomore LP If I Didn't Love You were taken by former Happen Inn and recording star Rob Guest, five years before his long run in the lead role of The Phantom Of The Opera. Cooper's make-up was done by Guest's then wife Lynette Perry.
Golden Guitar winners at Tamworth, 1992. Jan Cooper and Michael Roycroft for vocal duo or group of the year, Whangarei-born Keith Urban for male vocalist of the year and instrumentalist of the year.
Photo credit: Michael Roycroft collection
Michael Roycroft and Jan Cooper's Good Friends, released 1991
Jan Cooper's 1985 debut album No Looking Back was produced by Dick Le Fort.
Michael Roycroft and Jan Cooper, early 1990s
Photo credit: Michael Roycroft collection
Labels:

EMI


RCA


Larrikin Records

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