Matthews Southern Comfort
| Iain Matthews | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Iain Matthews McDonald |
| Also known as | Ian McDonald, Ian Matthews, Iain Matthews |
| Born |
16 June 1946 Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England |
| Genres | Folk, pop, rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar |
| Years active | 1967–present |
| Labels | Decca/Deram, Polydor, Vertigo, Elektra, Columbia, Mushroom, Windham Hill, Mooncrest, Brilliant |
| Associated acts | Fairport Convention, Plainsong, Matthews Southern Comfort |
| Website | iainmatthews |
Iain Matthews (born Iain Matthew McDonald, 16 June 1946) is an English musician and songwriter. He was a singer with Fairport Convention before forming his own band, Matthews Southern Comfort, which had a UK number one in 1970 with a cover version of Joni Mitchell's song "".
Born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, Matthews was known in the 1960s as Ian McDonald, then as Ian Matthews. In 1989, he reverted to the original spelling of his first name.
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 folk rock. He later had a solo career and led the bands Plainsong, Hi-Fi, No Grey Faith, More Than A Song, and Matthews Southern Comfort.
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.
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.
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