“A media conspiracy seems to exist to hide the talents of an exceptional songwriter under a blanket of romanticising his supposed homeless existence as an itinerant minstrel. Yes, Matt Epp has been travelling – from Spain’s Alpujarras Mountains to piles of Canadian dates, including a backstage photo op with Emmylou Harris in Kitchener. But the main thing is that Matt Epp is simply one of the best of a generation of fine songwriters emerging in this country over the last decade or so and carrying forward the torch of Canadian songwriting that goes back to Tyson, Lightfoot, Mitchell, Young, Cohen and Cockburn. It’s what we’re really good at.
Matt Epp regards himself as a writer of songs that he describes as “soulful folk.” He’s fooling around with a bit of rock treatment for some new ones, but soulful folk it is. He likes Dylan, Young, Cohen and Jonathan Richman, and sees himself in their tradition. He comes from Winnipeg and had a career in film before he decided to be a singer-songwriter. There was only one problem, however: he couldn’t sing or play an instrument!
Seven years, four recordings and hundreds of gigs later, he’s solved that. He can both play and sing. He can also write superb songs. One of them, one of his “hits”-They Won’t Find the Bodies- is a sort of twisted reworking of James Taylor’s You’ve Got a Friend with a vengeance, literally, involving images of gouged eyes and severed tongues. It’s a love song, and the vid …
“A media conspiracy seems to exist to hide the talents of an exceptional songwriter under a blanket of romanticising his supposed homeless existence as an itinerant minstrel. Yes, Matt Epp has been travelling – from Spain’s Alpujarras Mountains to piles of Canadian dates, including a backstage photo op with Emmylou Harris in Kitchener. But the main thing is that Matt Epp is simply one of the best of a generation of fine songwriters emerging in this country over the last decade or so and carrying forward the torch of Canadian songwriting that goes back to Tyson, Lightfoot, Mitchell, Young, Cohen and Cockburn. It’s what we’re really good at.
Matt Epp regards himself as a writer of songs that he describes as “soulful folk.” He’s fooling around with a bit of rock treatment for some new ones, but soulful folk it is. He likes Dylan, Young, Cohen and Jonathan Richman, and sees himself in their tradition. He comes from Winnipeg and had a career in film before he decided to be a singer-songwriter. There was only one problem, however: he couldn’t sing or play an instrument!
Seven years, four recordings and hundreds of gigs later, he’s solved that. He can both play and sing. He can also write superb songs. One of them, one of his “hits”-They Won’t Find the Bodies- is a sort of twisted reworking of James Taylor’s You’ve Got a Friend with a vengeance, literally, involving images of gouged eyes and severed tongues. It’s a love song, and the video remind you of the Dixie Chicks’ interment of Earl for beating up his wife. The CD it comes from has a bunch of others as good – little stories that Matt has turned into great songs. The film world’s loss is most definitely our gain.”
-- Gary Cristall 2010 Vancouver Folk Music Fest
Jesse DeNatale, Neil Young, Ron Sexsmith, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, Woody Guthrie, Ryan Adams, Jonathan Richman
