Iain Matthews

The following is a partial discography; a comprehensive discography is available [3] (http://www.iainmatthews.com/disco.htm) on Matthews' personal site. He performs and records under the name "Morel". Since that time, Matthews has had a moderately successful career, releasing records on a number of small labels in Germany, the UK, and the U.S., before moving to Amsterdam in 2000, where he continues to be involved in various indy projects and collaborations, including the Sandy Denny tribute band No Grey Faith and yet another revival of Plainsong. He has done remixes for arists such as Tina Turner, Tori Amos, Madonna and Pet Shop Boys. He also appeared with Andy Roberts at the 1992 Cambridge Folk Festival, which led to the first of what were to be several reformed version of Plainsong. Known primarily for his co-production of dance remixes by famous remixers Deep Dish, he has also released albums of his own music, including Peterbilt Angel and Queen of the Highway. It also led to his first truly solo performances: his previous "solo" outings had always been as a front man for a one-shot band. Richard Morel is an openly gay singer/songwriter, remixer and record producer from the DC Metro area of America.

It led, however, to hooking up with producer Mark Hallman — a longtime fan — moving to Austin, Texas, and recording several albums for a series of German independent labels. True (The Faggot Is You) (Gold Selling Single). This led to Walking a Changing Line (1988) on Windham Hill, an unlikely album-length tribute to Jules Shear of Jules and the Polar Bears. Yoshiesque (With Deep Dish). Matthews was invited to join them to perform, both with them and in other configurations, at the 1986 Cropredy Festival. Queen of the Highway. Since 1974, Fairport Convention had been staging the annual Cropredy Festival; since 1979, this annual reunion had been pretty much their only activity as a band, but in the mid-1980s several of them were interested in reviving the band and had done some recording. Peterbilt Angel.

He worked for a while in an A&R capacity at Island Music and then new-agey Windham Hill Records. Neither this nor a return to solo recording in England turned his luck. Soul" and Prince's "When U Were Mine". As Matthews' official web site writes, 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." [2] (http://www.iainmatthews.com/bio.htm) He moved from Los Angeles to then-inexpensive Seattle, where he teamed up with David Surkamp, formerly of the Seattle band Pavlov's Dog, to form the New Wave band Hi-Fi, whose repertoire included Matthews originals, but also covers of Neil Young's "Mr.

Label-owner Shelly Siegel, died suddenly in 1979, leaving the label rudderless. However, the North American rights for his album were held by the small Canadian label Mushroom. He bounced from Elektra to CBS Records, to the small Rockburgh label, where he finally scored a hit single in 1978 with a cover of Terence Boylan's "Shake It", and a moderately successful follow-up covering Robert Palmer's "Gimme an Inch". After Plainsong collapsed due to a bandmate's alcohol problem, and with his career now based in Los Angeles, he released several more albums with ad hoc bands, including one produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith, but none met with commercial success.

It also included "Even the Guiding Light", a spiritually positive answer to Thompson’s powerful but bleak "Meet on the Ledge". The album included a cover of Dave McEnery's "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight", plus a song of Matthews' own, "True Story of Amelia Earhart's Last Night" based on the research that suggest that Earhart on her round-the-world flight may have been spying on Japanese bases in the Pacific islands. After solo two albums on Vertigo Records, under the sponsorship of former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith and surrounded by a who's who of likeminded British semi-folkies (notably another ex-Fairporter, Richard Thompson), he formed Plainsong, who signed to Elektra Records and in 1972 produced In Search of Amelia Earhart, which solidified Matthews' songwriting reputation with the critics, if not with the general public. The band went through several different lineups and toured extensively for the next two years, to general critical acclaim but no great commercial success.

With Thompson, Nicol, and Hutchings from Fairport, plus drummer Gerry Conway (of Fotheringay, and later to join Fairport) and pedal steel player Gordon Huntley, he formed 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. In 1969, as Fairport's music veered more toward British folk influences, Matthews was booted out. He recorded a couple of singles there in 1967 with a pop band called Pyramid, before being recruited by Ashley Hutchings as a male vocalist for Fairport Convention, where he duetted first with Judy Dyble, but more famously with Sandy Denny. He moved to London in 1966, taking a job in a Carnaby Street shoe store.

Matthews grew up in a working class family in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, where he sang with several minor bands during the British pop music explosion of the mid-1960s. He later had a solo career and fronted the bands Plainsong and Matthews Southern Comfort. [1] (http://www.richieunterberger.com/matthews.html). Influenced by both rock'n'roll and folk music, he has performed mainly as a solo act, alghouth he was a member of Fairport Convention during the early period where they were heavily influenced by American West Coast folk rock. Iain Matthews (known in the 1960s first as Ian MacDonald, and from the late 1960s until 1989 as Ian Matthews) is a British musician and songwriter.

Plainsong, Pangolins (2003) Blue Rose. Iain Matthews and Elliot Murphy, La Terre Commune (2001) Blue Rose / rfect Pitch / Eminent. Iain Matthews and Elliot Murphy, The Official Blue Rose Bootleg (2001) Blue Rose. No Grey Faith, Secrets All Told — The Songs of Sandy Denny (2000) Perfect Pitch / Unique Gravity.

Iain Matthews, Excerpts from Swine Lake (1998) Blue Rose. Iain Matthews, Skeleton Keys (1992) Line. Ian Matthews, Walking a Changing Line (1986) Windham Hill. Hi-Fi,Moods for Mallards (1982) First American Records; live mini-album.

Hi-Fi,Demonstration Record (1982) First American Records; live mini-album. Ian Matthews, Siamese Friends (1979) Rockburgh. Ian Matthews, Stealin' Home (1978) Rockburgh. Ian Matthews, Hit and Run (1977) CBS.

Ian Matthews, Go For Broke (1976) CBS. Ian Matthews, Some Days You Eat the Bear...Some Days the Bear Eats You (1974) Elektra. Plainsong, In Search of Amelia Earhart (1972) Elektra. Ian Matthews, Tigers Will Survive (1972) Vertigo.

Matthews Southern Comfort, The Essential Collection (1997) Half Moon (a retrospective of 1970s recordings). Matthews Southern Comfort, Later That Same Year (1970) MCA. Matthews Southern Comfort, Second Spring (1970) MCA. Fairport Convention, Heyday(1986) BBC - a release of recordings from 1968/1969.

Fairport Convention, What We Did On Our Holidays(1968) Polydor. Fairport Convention, Fairport Convention(1968) Island. Pyramid, "The Summer of Last Year"/"Summer evening" (1967) Deram Records; his first recording.