Sometimes You Don’t Know Why: You Just Know!

Every now and then an artist comes along that makes you truly sit up and take very serious notice, and yet all the normal reasons for that don’t seem to hold substantive water.  A good voice, yeah but something else, great pitch, yeah but something else, extremely well crafted songs, yeah but something else, different instrumentation, yeah but something more, It is that indefinable break through that separates them from everyone else.  To be honest this reviewer first heard of Matt Andersen several years ago when he received a video from a Canadian friend i’m not going to tell you more, go watch it for yourself. 

Frankly every person the video was sent to wrote back the same thing, “Wow!” Sometimes you don’t have to know why, you just accept the wow factor.

This is a Canadian singer/songwriter who co wrote all of the ten songs on this disc.  Recorded in six cities ranging from NYC to Nashville to Kingston, Jamaica, to New Jersey with a wide variety of backing musicians, and it holds together like it was bonded with Gorilla Glue.  This is one of those rare cases where the sum far surpasses the parts that make it up.  It contains that magnificent ‘holy cow’  or “hot damn” factor that makes greatness.  

The more you listen to this artist the more you scratch your head and say why?  There are no fantastic solos, it is an album of rooted in the blues tinged singer/songwriter, so Why?  Why?  There is no single answer it just is.  It is the same when you see him in person;  is he beautiful, model good looks, chiseled jaw, no but with his first notes at a tough Nashville crowd it was on its feet and dancing, with those great big smiles on their faces that nothing short of an atomic bomb was going to wipe off.  This author has seen many, going back to Sam Cooke, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix (was on stage when he did the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock), the Grateful Dead, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and the Staples Singers, but for whatever reason this is the icing on the cake.  Do yourself a favor and pick it up.

by bob gottlieb

Matt Andersen – Honest Man, True North Records