After the adventures of Fairport, Matthews’ Southern Comfort, Plainsong and the beginnings of a solo career, Iain Matthews takes stock. Dropped by Elektra, he moves on to new deal with Columbia Records and relaunches. Rhythm of the West collects the two albums he made with Columbia and adds a host of previously unheard live and bonus material.
AN EXTENSIVE AND VARIED CAREER
Looking back over the extensive and varied career of Iain Matthews, it’s now clear that the year 1975 marked a significant turning point. He’d left Fairport Convention in 1969, during the recording of the seminal Unhalfbricking album and it was only a matter of months before he resurfaced as the face of his new band, Matthews’ Southern Comfort. Success came quickly.
Matthews’ Southern Comfort released three albums within the space of just over a year and generated shock waves that reverberate to this day when they scored a #1 hit single with their country-rock interpretation of Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock. It fell apart quickly and, by 1971, Iain Matthews was recording and performing as a solo artist, before linking up with ex-Liverpool Scene guitarist Andy Roberts, bassist Dave Richards and guitarist Bob Ronga to form Plainsong.
Like Matthews’ Southern Comfort, Plainsong also flew high but flew briefly. Their 1972 album, In Search Of Amelia Earhart, was critically acclaimed, but couldn’t hold the band together and they fell apart before the year was out. Cue a resurgence of Iain’s solo career…
FROM ELEKTRA TO COLUMBIA
Iain released three further solo albums in 1973 and 1974, perhaps most notably the Mike Nesmith-produced Valley Hi (1973), each released on Jac Holzman’s Elektra label. However, changes were afoot in the industry and, by 1975, Elektra had merged with David Geffen’s Asylum label and the combined entity had been absorbed by the Warner Communication Group. What’s more, the new corporation had decided that Iain Matthews’ music wasn’t as commercially attractive and they would have liked it to have been. Iain was dropped from the label.
It was a happy accident that led Iain Matthews to sign a deal with Columbia Records. Iain’s publisher was acquainted with Norbert Putnam who was in the process of producing a new album for The Flying Burrito Brothers, for Columbia. Putnam was looking out for a song to complete the album and a demo of Lonely Hunter, one of Iain’s recent songs, was put forward. The song didn’t work for the Burritos, but it generated interest within the appropriate echelons at Columbia, and Iain was offered his contract.
Iain’s Columbia contract was signed on 24th October 1975. The contract was for two albums, the first of which, Go for Broke, was released in March 1976. The second, Hit and Run, followed just over a year later, in April 1977. Both albums were creditable offerings; each a mix of covers and original compositions and both marking a radical departure from the contemporary folk and Americana with which Matthews is most associated.
GO FOR BROKE
Go For Broke met with modest success, selling upwards of 60,000 units and hopes were high for the follow-up. Sadly, Hit And Run failed to match up to the label’s expectations and Columbia declined to pick up the extension option, once the two albums had been delivered. That’s something of a shame because both Go For Broke and Hit And Run have their charms. The jazz-funk that dominates the albums is certainly of its time, but it’s music that still has its followers today and, hearing the albums once again, it’s clear that the combination of such deftly-performed, well-produced music and Iain Matthews’ inimitable, clear voice is a potent one.
Rhythm Of The West marks the 50th anniversary of the 1976 release of Go for Broke and packages that album – and Hit and Run – together with a plethora of demos, re-recordings and live recordings to form a 6-disc boxset.
Go For Broke is an interesting album. Four Iain Matthews original compositions sit alongside six well-chosen covers – we’ll take the cover versions first…
COVER VERSIONS
The album kicks off with Iain’s version of Darkness, Darkness – a Jesse Colin Young song that reached the lower branches of the US Billboard chart in the Spring of 1969. Here, it’s keyboard-heavy, cleanly-produced and clearly identifiable as an Iain Matthews interpretation. The reworking of Just One Look – previously a 1964 UK hit for The Hollies – is punchy, funky and instantly likeable, as is Iain’s take on Groovin’, the Young Rascals song. I’m less enamoured by the rather schmaltzy version of Tim Moore’s A Fool Like You but, when Iain moves on to When The Morning Comes, there’s more than a suggestion that he, himself, could have made a worthwhile partner for the song’s composer, Daryl Hall.
The inclusion of Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl on Go For Broke was something of an afterthought. A favourite song of Matthews’, he was persuaded to record it to complete the track lineup and it became the album’s lead single. Iain’s version will sound amazingly smooth to anyone familiar with the Morrison original, but I can assure you that the appeal grows. It’s clear that Iain loves the song and the celestial choir that provides the vocal backing is the icing on the cake.
ORIGINALS
Of the Matthews originals on Go For Broke, I’ll Be Gone is a slice of inoffensive AOR, with a guitar lick that recalls Manfred Mann’s Pretty Flamingo, and Lonely Hunter, the song that was instrumental in winning Iain the Columbia contract, is a disco-themed affair, typical of its time. Perhaps, though, the outstanding moments of Go For Broke come with the remaining pair of Matthews compositions. Rhythm Of The West, the song that gave its title to this boxset, is a big ballad, awash with jangly guitars and Steamboat is a joyous, reggae-fied number with tight backing harmonies; a song that suits Iain’s voice to a ‘T.’
The release of Go for Broke was followed by an extensive promotional jaunt around the USA, with Iain accompanied by a stellar band of musicians: Jay Lacy on guitar, Stephen Hooks on horns, Bobby Wright on keyboards, Don Whaley on bass and Bobby Guidotti on drums. Alongside the Go For Broke material, the band took the opportunity to road test songs that Iain was coming up with – often with input from band member Jay. Thus it was, when Iain and the band arrived at Larrabee Recording Studios in Los Angeles in early 1977, the new songs were ready to go.
HIT AND RUN
The great Steve Cropper had been approached as a potential producer for Hit And Run, but he declined the opportunity and Nik Venet – the former A&R man who had signed The Beach Boys to Capitol records – stepped in.
Hit and Run follows the covers/originals mix of its predecessor with, perhaps, a greater focus on the original material and a stronger influence of jazz-funk. Indeed, listeners could be forgiven for mistaking the covers of Terry Reid’s The Frame and Richard Stekol’s Help To Guide Me for lost Steely Dan recordings. By far the outstanding track amongst the covers is the smooth treatment of One Day Without You, the John Martyn song that opens his 1975 Sunday’s Child album.
Jazz funk prevails on Times, a whole-band composition, with elements that strongly recall Reno Nevada, Iain’s perpetual signature song. Written in partnership with guitarist Jay Lacy, I Will Not Fade Away is a sentimental ballad with lots of breathing space built in and Just One Look (same title, different song) perpetuates the jazz-funk theme.
But, for me at least, Hit And Run is defined by the two tracks that closed the original album – and both are Matthews-Lacy co-compositions. Shuffle is a delightful, ageless chunk of late-night jazz, whilst Hit And Run, the album’s title track, is as sleazy as heck. They’re both well-worth a revisit.
LIVE – AROUND THE WORLD AND THROUGH THE YEARS
It may seem surprising to some that a period of Iain Matthews’ career that yielded just two studio albums can be extended to fill a six-disc boxset… But, as has been already noted, Iain and the band were very busy on the live circuit during this period and that activity is represented on discs 3, 4 and 5 of this set. Discs 3 and 4 capture performances at the legendary Ebbets Field club in Denver from, respectively, 1976 and 1977. Both performances feature a mix of the songs from the pair of Columbia albums, with a sound that’s more immediate and less polished, compared to the pristine (but maybe sometimes a little sterile) production of the studio albums.
This extensive set is rounded off by a collection of recordings from stages across the world (literally, in the case of the 1976 Rock Around The World recordings featured on Disc 5.) The recordings span a period from 1976 to 2022 and demonstrate that Iain has never forgotten his Columbia adventure. Many of the recordings on Discs 5 and 6 are drawn from Iain’s personal archive and are available to his fans for the first time.
Cherry Red Records have done it again. Rhythm of the West is, primarily, a collection for the Iain Matthews completist but, for those ‘in the know,’ it will form an essential cornerstone of their collections.
Watch Iain Matthews & band perform their version of Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl below:
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