Article

Matt Minglewood

Published Online June 21, 2007

Last Edited December 16, 2013

Matt (b Roy Alexander) Minglewood (b Batherson). Singer, guitarist, organist, songwriter, b Moncton, NB, 31 Jan 1947. Raised in North Sydney, Cape Breton, NS, he began his career there with the Rockin' Saints.

Minglewood, Matt

Matt (b Roy Alexander) Minglewood (b Batherson). Singer, guitarist, organist, songwriter, b Moncton, NB, 31 Jan 1947. Raised in North Sydney, Cape Breton, NS, he began his career there with the Rockin' Saints. In the late 1960s he teamed up with the singer Sam Moon in Universal Power, a popular blues and R&B band. Minglewood formed his own band in 1975, its personnel comprising Enver Sampson (harmonica), Donny Hann (bass guitar), Bob Woods (drums), and a succession of guitarists. The group issued its debut LP, the self-produced Minglewood Band - familiarly, 'The Red Album' (Solar SAR-2010) - in 1976.

Other LPs, in a blues and country-influenced style of rock that brought Minglewood comparisons to the southern US artists Charlie Daniels and Marshall Tucker, followed 1979-82 for RCA (Minglewood Band, KKL1-0325; Movin', KKL1-0370; Out on a Limb, KKL1-0415; Smoker, KKL1-0472) and in 1982 for Epic (M5, PEC-80071). Sales of the second Minglewood Band and of Movin' each exceeded 50,000 copies, reflecting Minglewood's success as a club performer across Canada and as a major attraction in the Maritimes. In 1981 the band toured in the USA. The popular Minglewood titles 'East Coast Blues' and 'Rockin' the Blues,' as well as 'Can't You See,' date to this period.

In 1985 Minglewood introduced a new band. Two subsequent albums for the Savannah label, Me and the Boys (SRL-9825, issued in 1985), and The Promise (SRL-9830, released in 1988), showed a more pronounced country influence. The first included 'Georgia on a Fast Train,' and the second, 'You Win Again' and 'Someday I'm Gonna Ride in a Cadillac,' all country hits in Canada. The song 'Me and the Boys' was also recorded by Charlie Daniels in 1985. Minglewood appeared on European radio and TV in 1988 as part of a Savannah troupe.