Matt Blake is an americana-folk singer currently living in an old monastery that has been converted into an artist space in Appleton, Wisconsin. He has recorded two solo albums – ten years apart, both produced by guitarist Doug Pettibone – and you could do much worse than listening to his 2024 release, “Cheaper to Fly.” The experience could be compared to slipping into a pair of comfortable, old slippers. He certainly hadn’t lost any of his chops during those intervening ten years.
Blake had the good sense to move to Wisconsin from Los Angeles. Previously, he lived in Austin and Nashville. “I lived in the woods in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas prior to the string of cities,” he commented. “Since I couldn’t do regular school very well, I ended up in art school in Chicago after leaving the Warren/Youngstown area of Ohio. If you want to know about my inspiration in life, I grew up in a house with a lot of words. My Dad was a minister and Mom a librarian – two poets at heart.”
The poetic genes didn’t skip over Matt. His story songs are drawn from life experience, such as ‘Big Snow,’ which finds him encountering the downside of trading L.A. sunshine for the wintry Badger state. Snowed in already, he’s longing for some warming rays before learning that another blast of snow is on the radar. The sense of isolation continues in the poignant ‘Help Me,’ pedal steel guitar plaintively asking for someone to reach out during troubled times.
Matt performs solo and, on occasion, is joined by The Real Deal, a band comprised of the talented Lohrenz brothers: Richard, Bruce, and Kevin. For his solo AUK Mini-Gig, Blake has a story about his acoustic guitar: “That’s the only guitar I’ve ever purchased new. I walked into Guitar Rez in Austin, Texas, strummed it, then started dreaming about it. I had to buy it back around 2004, I believe. It’s a Santa Cruz DPW, mahogany. They were half the cost as they are now, and I sold two guitars to pay for it, but it was well worth it. It’s light as a feather and fits my voice pretty well, though I use a Gibson J-45 when I play live. It’s much sturdier and likes to be strummed hard when the music calls for it.”
As for the songs you will hear, Blake shares an interesting detail about the story of ‘Keith Richards’ Bones.’ “I used to be a stagehand at the Ryman Auditorium over 25 years ago and was lucky to work with and meet a lot of amazing musicians and songwriters, basically my heroes – Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Dolly Parton, George Jones and Ray Charles, just to name a few. During a Willie Nelson and Friends show, I found myself backstage standing next to Willie, Hank III, and Keith Richards. I rarely ever broke the rule of being the silent, professional stagehand who just did his job, but at this moment, it was too hard to resist. I turned to Keith and said, ‘It’s great to have you here at the Ryman.’ He held out his hand and said, “It’s great to be here, mate,” and we shook hands. This was all very quick and pressed between curtains seconds before he hit the stage, but his hand felt like a satin pillow, like some sort of mystical royalty. That night after we loaded out the show and swept the stage, I wrote the song.”
He affirmed ‘Cheaper to Fly’ was the product of many years touring as merch seller/show opener/and tour manager with Lucinda Williams, combined with unconscious connections of past relationships and spending too much time on buses. “I wrote the first four lines of the song on an old envelope I had slid into a drawer and forgotten about. The rest grew as the strange sweetness of heartache usually does. The last song, ‘Always a Way to Love Again,’ is very new. It’s just what it says it is. Inspired by my wife, Angie.”
That’s sort of the mini gig in a nutshell. It should be mentioned that Blake’s 6-month-old pup, June, makes an appearance. “She’s amazing!” he enthused. “My wife and I named her after the month we were married, and of course, after June Carter Cash. Also, I banged my guitar against an aluminum light fixture, very light and cheap, a Target thing. It didn’t hurt the guitar at all, but it made quite a dinging sound during the recording, between songs.”
Well, perfection is sometimes overrated. We need to be able to accept the messiness of life. As Matt Blake puts it: “The only real conclusion I’ve reached about anything is maybe the universe is a little more like Keith Richards than previously thought.
I dig that song about Keith Richards, very cool. Thanks for the article! K