NZ-born Garth Porter, best known for his role & work in Sherbet has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia.

In Hamilton, NZ, Garth first put a foot in the music industry door when he was 14 & playing rhythm guitar in a band called Fruit. Next it was a band known as Swellsfoot when he as a student at the University of Waikato in 1969.

After re-locating to Sydney he was in a couple of bands before joining Sherbet in October 1970 in the spot that had been held by Sam See. Garth joined to play Hammond organ and electric piano then around 1973 he added a Mellotron to his armoury.

He co-wrote the huge Sherbet hit Howzat with Tony Mitchell, which was their second No.1 hit in Australia in May 1976. It went to No.1 in NZ too and got into the Top 10 in countries including the UK, Thailand, South Africa and parts of Europe.He was involved in writing all the tracks from the Howzat album. Most he wrote with Tony Mitchell and 2 he wrote independently.

Sherbet was the most successful of the 1970s pop bands in Oz. Garth was faithful to them from 1970 – 1984. (The last of those years the band was known as Highway; later Sherbs.)

Since Sherbet folded Garth has maintained an amazing workload still within the music industry. He did lots of session work with groups like the Mixtures and worked as producer with bands like the Sunnyboys and others including Rockwell T. James. More recently he has been involved in producing country music by musicians like Lee Kernaghan.

From 1993 he has won a huge number of awards, including an APRA song award in 1994. Five times from 1995 – 2000 he was named Producer of the Song of the Year. In 2000 he was inducted into the Hands of Fame.

In 2004 & 2007 it was the CMAA award he won for Producer of the Year, while in 2011 he won the People’s Choice Award for the Best Song Love in the Time of Drought co-written with Lee Kernaghan.