Matt Andersen
Album: Coal Mining Blues
Label: Busted Flat
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.stubbyfingers.ca

Matt's name wasn't familiar to me, so I was unsure what to expect from first acquaintance - but just a half-minute into this CD and I was convinced I'd known his music for years somehow. His delivery for a start - a tender, naturally soulful voice of telling maturity that wraps snugly around - and is wrapped around by - his own expert guitar playing (acoustic or electric, he's great on both). His songs (those on this particular disc, at any rate) have the hallmark of classic 60s soul, blues and R&B, a feature emphasised by the equally classic mould of the supremely tasty musical backdrops he and album co-producer Colin Linden have arranged, which involve organ, piano, saxes and a tight, solid-state rhythm section. It's as authentic as they come, and yet Matt hails from Canada (New Brunswick)!

For some unfathomable reason, Matt's able to get right inside of the idiom through his original songs (all but two of this disc's dozen tracks), which are a model of true sensitivity. They deal mostly with relationships: not specifically with coal mining as it turns out, although the CD's title song is the exception, being an intensely touching exploration of the personal heroism of the coal miner himself. Surprisingly perhaps, the overall mood of the album is quite upbeat, for Matt's a survivor and he thoughtfully wants to honestly share his experiences for our good. Again despite the album title, this isn't a blues album in any conventional sense, for it's never that weary, downtrodden, woman-driving-man-mad syndrome but rather more of a positive celebration of what a relationship can achieve, an unpretentious and affectionate statement of a man's emotional needs and responses that when all's said and done is perfectly reasonable and as undemanding as it is natural in any good relationship.

Harsh aspects of life are tempered with an unusual (for blues) degree of lyricism, and that tenderness I noted in Matt's delivery comes from a true understanding of the working of relationships. Songs like Make You Stay, Baby I'll Be and She Comes Down say so much in so little space, and take all the time they need to get right to the heart of things, yet simply and with no messing. No doubt much of the album's classic and timeless roots-soul feel is down to it being recorded in Levon Helm's studio in Woodstock, NY, with a crack team of musicians that really know the part - notably keyboard players John Sheard and John Whynot (Lucinda sideman) and sax player Jim Horn - and the presence of Amy Helm (from Ollabelle) on backing vocals and an appearance from The Band's Garth Hudson (accordion on Home Sweet Home).

The tracks more or less alternate between gutsy and fresh-minted uptempo outings and keenly felt, if sometimes longish soul ballads, with occasional sidetracks into folksiness (the guitar- and mando-backed Willie's Diamond Joe) and gospel. It's a compelling set, and its 53 generous minutes pass swiftly - quite simply because the listener can't fail to get involved due to the believable nature of the lyrics and the overriding (yet entirely rightly so) presence of Matt's extraordinary singing. A real discovery, and a very fine set indeed.

David Kidman