The 1970s was a whole new thing, pop was out and rock was in. Coburn, with business partner Robert Raymond, delivered cooler than cool Western Springs concerts including Elton John in 1971 and Led Zeppelin in 1972, as well as the 1973 Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival. Coburn started the coolest indie label, White Cloud Records, and managed Split Enz. He also toured blues giants Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Freddie King.
Early this century, Barry Coburn took the vinyl 78s of his father’s radio programs to Nashville’s Country Hall of Fame and transferred the recordings to digital files. Coburn then took them to Georgetown Masters, a historic multi-million dollar mastering studio on Nashville's Music Row. The late Denny Purcell – the mastering engineer trusted by Neil Young – re-mastered the Merv Coburn Orchestra to CD. Coburn told writer Larry Le Blanc, “I had just got the CD and I was playing it at home one night when Steve Cropper and Jim Horn were over for dinner. Jim said, ‘Is that a Duke Ellington record? I haven’t heard that before.’ I said that it was my dad. Jim was like, ‘What?’”
Barry Coburn signed legendary NZ luthier Peter Madill's band Minglewood to Viking.
The co-producer of the The Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival went on to become the associate producer of the movie Schlinder’s List. Coburn’s former business partner Robert Raymond purchased the film rights to a book by Australian author Tom Keneally – “Schindler’s Ark” – and then on-sold the rights to Steven Spielberg, gaining himself an associate producer credit on the Hollywood film.
A North American writer attributed the staging of the “Now Are Hear” Festival to Barry Coburn. The correct transcription of the writer’s audio would be “Ngaruawahia” Festival.