Iain Matthews (and from the late 1960s until 1989 known as Ian Matthews) is an English musician and songwriter. A member of
Fairport Convention during their early period, Ian Matthews had a successful solo career and fronted the bands Plainsong and Matthews Southern Comfort .
He was born Iain Matthew McDonald, 16 June 1946, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. Influenced by both rock and roll and folk music, he has performed mainly as a solo act, although he was a member of
Fairport Convention during the early period when they were heavily influenced by American West Coast folk rock.
...
He later had a solo career and fronted the bands Plainsong and Matthews Southern Comfort .
Matthews grew up in a working-class family in Scunthorpe. He sang with several minor bands during the British pop music explosion of the mid-1960s. He moved to London in 1966, taking a job in a Carnaby Street shoe shop. He recorded a couple of singles there in 1967 with a pop band called Pyramid.
Not long afterwards, he was recruited by Ashley Hutchings as a male vocalist for Fairport Convention , where he duetted first with Judy Dyble, but more famously with Sandy Denny . In 1969, as Fairport's music veered much more toward British folk influences, Matthews made the decision to head off in his own musical direction.
With Thompson, Nicol, and Hutchings from Fairport Convention , plus drummer Gerry Conway (of Fotheringay , and later to join Fairport) and pedal steel player Gordon Huntley, he recorded his first solo album, Matthews' Southern Comfort, whose sound was rooted in American country music and rockabilly; this was his first significant experience as a songwriter, although the band also covered the likes of Neil Young and Ian and Sylvia.
>> Read Full Info
Read more...
