Music of the Moment: The Matt Schofield Trio
I have temporarily set aside Live in Dublin to listen to something that’s been in the “to review” stack for awhile. The Matt Schofiled Trio has an album due out this month, Ear to the Ground.
I’ve listened to the album once or twice since it arrived. The two tracks that standout for me are the album’s opener, “Pack it Up,” and the title track, “Ear to the Ground.”
The UK-born bluesman is drawing the inevitable comparisons to Stevie Ray Vaughan. I don’t hear that. He’s a young, white kid playing in a blues trio — that’s where the comparisons end for me.
It took awhile to get used to Schofield as a vocalist. His voice is growing on me, but the music is still the main attraction on this set. The Trio is a guitar-based blues band, yet I am oddly drawn to the organ work as much as anything else on the CD. I love the way it’s used and played in the context of Schofield’s blues-jazz compositions.
I’m planning to write a fuller review of the album in the not-too-distant future. I’m going to need more time — time to listen to the album and time to actually write the review.
In the meantime, Matt Schofield Trio’s Ear to the Ground is my Music of the Moment.
Filed under: Tags: Music of the Moment
it’s really unfair, and sort of lazy, when every young white guy with a guitar gets compared to SRV.
the same thing happened with Johnny Lang, who is really more of a soul singer than a blues guy. at least that’s the way he came across when i saw him in boston several months back.
It’s true that this label shouldn’t automatically be applied. Some artists seem to invite it. Lang may have moved on since, but the way he was marketed early on in his career — and he got a very early start — made that comparison inevitable. He’s gotten older and moved on but the label will take some time to shake.
Other singer/guitarists out there — and I’m not going to name names — seem to embrace their Stevie Ray Vaughanabee tendencies.
As Matt’s manager I can probably contribute a reasonably well informed opinion to the SRV debate. Matt will tell you that SRV was a big inspiration - not so much for what he played, as how he played it - the passion, the inflections, his tone and the scale of his sound - and that is perhaps what some people are hearing in Matt. Yes, he did the SRV thing briefly, in his teens! but Matt will also tell you that SRV is SRV, nobody does it better and there’s no point trying to sound like someone else.
Josh, stick with Ear To The Ground - it’s one of those albums that rewards repeated listening.