传记
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出生
1976 年 January 15日 (49 岁)
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生于
Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, 英国
A late summer’s Saturday morning in Moseley, Birmingham. The kettle’s on and the biscuits are being dished out in Artisan Studios.
The recording of the album has been going well, on and off for the past few months. Scott Matthews, a singer-songwriter from Wolverhampton, can see everything coming together. All the ideas that he stockpiled while serving time playing guitar and keeping his mouth shut in other bands. All the passions – from, say, Jimi Hendrix to Ryan Adams via Elliott Smith – that he’s been stoking while shifting boxes in a warehouse. The musical ambition that bubbled away underneath as he made music in a local theatre and conducted workshops in schools.
Now, some final touches are all that are needed for Matthews’ debut album. He’s already had the string quartet in; the vibraphone, flute and clarinet are in the bag. He’s happy with his own playing, with the crunchy riffs, the delicate picking, the occasional slide guitar. But he’s been asking round the Midlands for a tabla player. This Saturday morning, a guy finally shows up. He’s a fortysomething called Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari, born in India but living in Birmingham.
For three hours Namdhari listens to Matthews’ songs and plays along, improvising and jamming and tweaking. He has ten different ideas for ‘Dream Song’, a swirling, epic number that, even in its unfinished state, is a gem – the missing link between Jeff Buckley and Led Zeppelin. ‘He’d do a loose groove then something quite dynamic,’ recalls Matthews. ‘He just blew us away. Who’d have thought you could get so many ideas out a drum?’
One of Namdhari’s ideas is shaped into ‘Little Man Tabla Jam Part 1’, which ends up opening the album. He also appears on ‘Musical Interval’, another of Matthews’ interludes – part of his grander vision for the almost-finished album, which he’s calling Passing Stranger.
‘I liked the idea of this seamless quality, where even “dead spaces” are interesting,’ says Matthews. ‘Even if it’s just a musical phrase or something, just some distraction from the formal structure of a song. Steal you away for ten seconds before you come back into a full song. I loved that quality about Badly Drawn Boy’s The Hour Of Bewilderbeast. The idea of linking songs, songs bleeding into each other… It’s a journey isn’t it?’
By lunchtime Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari was gone. He’d helped give an album of magical urban folk songs a vibe that was ancient and modern, locally-made and worldly-wise. This was Midlands blues with international welly.
‘Only after he’d left did I find out he’d been a member of Ravi Shankar’s orchestra,’ says Matthews with a shake of the head. He admits he’s kinda relieved he didn’t know of his guest musician’s pedigree – Matthews might have been a little intimidated. ‘And he was on Ry Cooder’s A Meeting By The River – that won the Grammy for Best World Music album in 1994! Bloody hell…’
Even when it’s ignorant of the fact, greatness attracts greatness. It’s been happening to the very great Scott Matthews since he began properly writing his own songs in 2002.
He knew he could play a bit: he’d gotten a guitar when he was seven, but really plugged himself in when he received an electric aged 11, before being spun arse over tit (in a good way) when he came across Hendrix in his early teens. ‘He was the man for me. Still is.’ Matthews wasn’t sure about his own singing though – a remarkable admission from an artist who will surely go down as one of the jaw-dropping vocal discoveries of 2006.
But he had a go. And he weaned himself of his obsession with what he calls ‘funky-driven rocky blues – I thought I was John Frusciante,’ he laughs. ‘Then I woke up.’
The songs poured out of him. And as far as making a star of Matthews, it would be the songs – poetic, tuneful, heartfelt – that would do all the heavy lifting. Which is how things should be but usually aren’t.
He recorded a demo of Passing Stranger and pressed up 20 CDs. He gave one to a bloke who’d caught one of his early gigs round the Midlands. That punter was so blown away he became Matthews’ manager. The manager took it to an old friend with whom he’d been in a band. He was blown away too. The pair decided to form a label, simply so more people could get to hear this unknown kid. He could be the greatest star from Wolverhampton since Robert Plant…
The new label, San Remo, got together a modest budget for the recording of Passing Stranger. Matthews, a comic book fan who’d studied graphic design, would design the sleeve; his girlfriend took the photographs. (‘Although I think mebbe there’s a few too many of me,’ mutters the modest, semi-mortified Matthews.) To master it, they approached Ray Staff in London; he’d worked on Physical Graffiti, Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust. Staff was blown away too.
In April this year, Passing Stranger was released on San Remo. Now it was the turn of the major record labels to fall for Scott Matthews. At one spring show at London’s 12 Bar Club, all the big labels were represented. In the end Island secured his handshake. For music obsessive Matthews it was more about heritage than any wodge of cash.
‘As a label it says everything to me about what I want to do with my music… Nick Drake, John Martyn, Bob Marley, PJ Harvey – there’s just a great mix of artists who’ve been on Island. Fairport Convention, Tom Waits… I was digging all these artists that had work on the label as far back as 30 years ago. I just felt comfortable with it.’
This autumn, as Island reissue Passing Stranger and he performs a series of buzzed-about one-man gigs, keep your ear out for Scott Matthews. But that shouldn’t be too difficult. His single ‘Elusive’ enjoyed heavy support from Zane Lowe, Mark Radcliffe and Jo Whiley. Its atmospheric, hymnal thrum, topped off with Matthews’ churchy choralling, is utterly spine-tingling.
There’s loads more like that on the album. Counting the musical interludes there are 17 tracks, offering an abundance of riches – all are fit for inclusion, and nothing outstays its welcome. ‘The Fool’s Fooling Himself’ is sure to be a barnstormer live, a big, ballsy tune that could be Pearl Jam covering The Doors. The rootsy blues groove of ‘Sweet Scented Figure’ suggests that Matthews comes not from Birmingham, England but Birmingham, Alabama. The title track has traces of The Faces, albeit in hungover, reflective mode rather than as beery shaggers. ‘Earth To Calm’ effortlessly demonstrates that finally, in an age where troubled troubadors are two-a-penny, we have a young singer-songwriter who bears proper, artful comparison with Nick Drake.
The result: a complete, whole, enveloping album, full of light and shade, romance and loss, uppers and downers, Indian vibes and American blues, modern English folk and proper full-on rock. With the debut from Scott Matthews, the (ahem) tablas have been turned on the British singer-songwriter tradition. Passing Stranger is, in short, pure magic.
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