The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
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IAN MATTHEWS
“SHAKE IT”
(Terence Boylan)
Mushroom 7039
No. 13 February 17, 1979
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He has told Rolling Stone that he’s known primarily as a rebel. Outside of his faithful cult following,
however, singer-songwriter Ian Matthews is known mostly for his smoothwork with the Brit-folk Fairport
Convention and his namesake band, MATTHEWS SOUTHERN COMFORT. Both of his former groups
were seemingly at the peak of their creative and pop powers when Ian left them.
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He was born Ian McDonald in Lincolnshire, England, in June, 1946. He began attracting notice playing
guitar and singing with a teenage R & B band called the Rebels. “The Drifters, the Coasters, that’s what I
latched onto,” Matthews told Rolling Stone’s Byron Laursen. “I must have sounded so dumb.” Next,
Matthews tried playing surf music in a Deram recording act called the Pyramid (no relation to the
baldheaded surf group the Pyramids). One single was issued, “Summer of Last Year.” In 1967, Ian was
asked to join the original Fairport Convention (for three albums). “I’ve never really been a folkie,” he
explained to Guitar Player. “When I joined Fairport Convention, they weren’t a folk band… They were
doing their own interpretations of mainly American material; they’d do songs by the Byrds and Tim
Hardin. That’s the nearest we came to folk music.” All was to change, however, when Sandy Denny was
admitted into the fold, and the group’s direction veered toward Celtic allusions and medieval English
balladry. “That was when I really became disillusioned with the band.”
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Ian left in 1969 to form his own group, Matthews Southern Comfort, with Carl Barnwell (guitar), Ray
Duffy (drums), Mark Griffins (guitar), Gordon Huntley (pedal-steel guitar), and Andy Leigh (bass).
Three country-folk-rockin’ LPs followed; with the success of a take on Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” (#23,
1971), Ian was gone, though two other singles from Matthews Southern Comfort’s Later That Same Year
album made the Hot 100: “Mare, Take Me Home” (#96, 1971) and a cover of Neil Young’s “Tell Me Why”
(#98, 1971). Huntley and the rest carried on as Southern Comfort for three more LPs before disbanding
in 1972.
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Since his departure from the Southern Comfort band, Ian has carried on as a soloist for most of the time
with a loyal following. There have been occasional one-off projects with groups like Plainsong (In
Search of Amelia Earhart), the Hi-Fi’s, and the Mallards. Critics have praised Matthews for his tasteful
and folk tinged interpretations of songs by Jackson Browne, Carole King, RANDY NEWMAN, Tom Waits,
and Neil Young. A few of these solo efforts sold well: Tigers Will Survive (1972), Valley Hi (1973)
(produced by ex-Monkee Mike Nesmith), and Stealin Home (1978). Only one of the many singles taken
from these albums has been a Top 40 hit: producer/singer/songwriter Terence Boylan’s “Shake It.” In
reference to his big moment, Ian said to Rolling Stone that “I don’t think I did anything different. I guess
it’s my reward. After all, I’ve been doing exactly what I want for…years.”
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Ian Matthews–for a period of time an A & R director at the Windham Hill label–continues to record
albums, though sporadically.