Iain Matthews

Origins

Matthews grew up in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. He played football with Bradford Park Avenue. During the British pop music explosion of the mid-1960s, he sang with several bands and moved to London in 1966, taking a job in a Carnaby Street shoe shop. That year he formed a trio, The Pyramid, an English short-lived surf music band, which recorded one single, "Summer of Last Year" in January 1967, on Deram Records. A remaining song, "Me About You," surfaced on Matthews' Orphans & Outcasts Volume 3 in 1999.

Fairport Convention

In the spring of 1967, Matthews was recruited by Ashley Hutchings as a male vocalist for Fairport Convention, where he sang with Judy Dyble and then with Sandy Denny. In 1969, as Fairport drew increasingly from a British traditional folk repertoire, Matthews found out he had not been invited to a recording session and, after a short discussion with Ashley Hutchings, departed on a musical direction of his own.

Matthews Southern Comfort

In 1969 Matthews recorded his debut solo album, Matthews' Southern Comfort, which was rooted in American country music and rockabilly. He made the album with ex-Fairport colleagues Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol and Ashley Hutchings, plus guitarist Mark Griffiths, drummer Gerry Conway, pedal steel guitarist Gordon Huntley, and keyboardists Dolly Collins and Roger Coulam. This was his first significant experience as a songwriter, although the band also did cover versions of Neil Young and Ian and Sylvia songs. He followed it up by forming a working band using the name of his first album, Matthews Southern Comfort (without the apostrophe), releasing two more albums Second Spring (1970 – UK #52) and Later That Same Year (1970).

The band went through various different line-ups and toured extensively for the next two years. They had one commercial success, a cover version of "Woodstock" by Joni Mitchell which was a number one hit single in the UK Singles Chart in October 1970. It received heavy airplay in Canada, reaching No. 5, as well as peaking at No. 23 on the Billboard singles charts in the United States in 1971. Afterwards, Matthews left Southern Comfort, who went on to release three albums of their own on Harvest Records.

Plainsong

In 1971, Matthews recorded two solo albums (If You Saw Thro' My Eyes & Tigers Will Survive), on Vertigo Records. Under the sponsorship of former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith, and surrounded by likeminded British semi-folkies (notably another ex-Fairporter, Richard Thompson), he formed Plainsong, who signed to Elektra Records.

In 1972 Plainsong released In Search of Amelia Earhart. The album included a cover of Dave McEnery's "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight", plus a song by Matthews, "True Story of Amelia Earhart's Last Night". The song is based on research that suggests that Earhart may have been spying on Japanese bases in the Pacific islands. It also included "Even the Guiding Light", an answer to Thompson's "Meet on the Ledge".

Moving around

After Plainsong collapsed due to a bandmate's alcohol problem, and with his career now based in Los Angeles, Matthews released several more albums with ad hoc bands: Journeys from Gospel Oak (1972); Valley Hi (1973), produced by Michael Nesmith, (formerly of the Monkees); Some Days You Eat The Bear (1974); Go For Broke (1976) and Hit and Run (1977). None of these met with commercial success. He went from Elektra to Columbia Records, to the small Rockburgh label, where he scored a hit single in 1978 with a cover of Terence Boylan's "Shake It", which reached No. 13 on the US charts. He had a moderately successful follow-up covering Robert Palmer's "Gimme an Inch". However, the North American rights for his album Stealin' Home and its followup Siamese Friends were held by the small Canadian label Mushroom. When label-owner Shelly Siegel died in 1979, Matthews' association with that label came to an end. The song "Shake It" is heard at the beginning of the 1980 movie Little Darlings. It can also be heard on the radio in the game The Warriors from Rockstar games.

Matthews' official web site states that at this point he "had been struggling for nearly 15 years now and was still living hand to mouth, with nothing to show for his efforts but a string of out-of-print albums, and the loyalty of those musicians and fans who shared his vision." He moved from Los Angeles to Seattle, where he teamed up with David Surkamp, formerly of the St. Louis band Pavlov's Dog, to form the power pop band Hi-Fi, whose repertoire included Matthews' originals, but also covers of Neil Young's "Mr. Soul" and Prince's "When You Were Mine". He worked in an A&R capacity at Island Records and then Windham Hill Records.

Later career

Starting in 1977, Fairport Convention held the annual Cropredy Festival. In the mid-1980s, there was interest in reviving the band and recording new material. Matthews was invited to perform with them as a part of the band, and in their other projects, at the 1986 Cropredy Festival. This led to Walking a Changing Line (1988) on Windham Hill, a tribute to Jules Shear of Jules and the Polar Bears. This beautifully produced effort was the first vocal album ever released by Windham Hill. Matthews then moved to Austin, Texas and recorded several albums for a series of German independent labels. He appeared with Andy Roberts at the 1992 Cambridge Folk Festival, which led to the first of what became several changed versions of Plainsong.

In 2000 Matthews moved to Amsterdam, where he became involved in independent music projects and collaborations, including the Sandy Denny tribute band No Grey Faith and another revival of Plainsong. Moving to Horst in the south of the Netherlands, in 2008 he produced Joy Mining with the Dutch jazz ensemble, Searing Quartet. In September 2010, he released the first Matthews Southern Comfort album in 40 years and returned to a major record label.

Since 2003 Matthews has worked with Dutch pianist and composer Egbert Derix. They met when Matthews, a jazz fan, came to a concert of Derix's Searing Quartet in Cambrinus (Horst, The Netherlands). Matthews asked Derix to join him in his 2003 tour of his 1970 album If You Saw Thro' My Eyes. They played a series of concerts with Eric Coenen (bass), Arthur Lijten (drums) and Ad Vanderveen (guitar). After the tour Matthews and Derix started writing together, resulting in the 2008 album Joy Mining Matthews & Derix started their own label: MatriX. In 2012 the Iain Matthews/Egbert Derix album In the Now was released by Verve Records. Joy Mining and In the Now had separate releases in the United Kingdom and United States. In January–February 2015 Matthews and Derix toured in California to promote the US releases of their albums. Dutch filmmakers Peter Jong and Olivier Hamaker made a documentary about the making of In the Now. Matthews can also be heard on Egbert Derix' solo album Paintings in Minor Lila (2012) on which the music of British progressive rock band Marillion is featured. The album has contributions by Matthews, Marillion singers Fish and Steve Hogarth, and Supertramp saxophonist John Helliwell. Matthews was guest vocalist in 2011 on the Helliwell/Derix Quintet tour in The Netherlands. Matthews and Derix co-wrote eight songs for Matthews's solo album The Art of Obscurity (2013)

In December 2011 he performed as Matthews Southern Comfort with his Dutch band at the 2nd Great British Folk Festival at Butlins Skegness and performed a set of both old and new songs. In January 2014 Matthews toured as part of the Gene Clark No Other band, performing Gene Clark's album No Other with other singers such as Robin Pecknold of the Fleet Foxes

Matthews is a season-ticket holder at Scunthorpe United football club.

Solo

Box Sets

Limited edition 5CD archival box set containing Live Alone, Intimate Wash, Camouflage, Nights In Manhattan And Points West, plus a fifth, then unreleased CD, Woodshedding.

Slimline Series

2-on-1 Reissues / Remasters

Groups

Fairport Convention

Matthews Southern Comfort

Plainsong

Hamilton Pool

Hi-Fi

No Grey Faith

More Than A Song

Collaborations

With Julian Dawson

With Elliott Murphy

With Elliott Murphy and Olivier Durand

With Searing Quartet

With Nick Vernier Band

With Egbert Derix

With Nick Vernier Band and Emitt Rhodes

With Ad Vanderveen

Billboard charts

Hot 100 Singles

Easy Listening (Adult Contemporary)