Thursday, March 2, 2000
By Sandra Davis
Times Globe, Saint John, NB
Minglewood fans don't want country or straight-ahead rock 'n' roll. When they buy an album or catch a live performance, they want to hear Matt Minglewood play his legendary style of gut-splitting blues-rock.
After an 11 year hiatus from recording, Matt Minglewood is back with a vengeance, returning to his blues/rock roots with a new CD called Drivin Wheel that has him not only touring the country, but heading to Europe this July to play Holland, Belgium and Germany, where he's been told he can expect up to 3,000 people a night.
But before he get too busy, Minglewood will make a stop at Tapps Brewpub next Saturday night, March 11.
It'll be the first time he's performed in the city for a couple of years and Minglewood promises his fans won't be disappointed
There was a time, around 1985, that CBS thought Minglewood might be the next Loverboy and a few years later, a stint with Savannnah Records has him accentuating the country side.
His fans were confused. They wanted their blues-rocker back.
Today, Minglewood is back doing what he should on his own label, Norton Records, and confident he made the right decision.
"After all of that, I decided I'm going right back to what I was doing in the first place, which was rock and blues," said Minglewood in an interview earlier this week.
"It's what I really never got away from."
Minglewood says his new CD, Drivin' Wheel, is more like his first, the Red Album, of 1975 - one of 10 he's recorded over the past 25 years that have sold more than 350,000 records in Canada alone. His band - the driving force behind him for the past 10 years - is made up of veteran bass player Grant Leslie, drummer Neil Robertson - who hails from Saint John - and Jim Ralph, piano. All do backup vocals for Minglewood.
The musician acknowledges fans have had a long wait for a new album, but that doesn't mean he hasn't been busy.
In fact, he's never stopped playing, heading west twice a year and to Ontario, along with playing around his home of Glace Bay, NS
Now, with Drivin' Wheel just released, he's busier than ever and basking in great reviews. The first single from the new album, How High is High Enough, is receiving lots of airplay around Sydney and Halifax, Moncton and Saint John and there's lots of buzz about the album.
"It's been a positive experience since it came out. Everything is starting to pick up again," says Minglewood.
Visitors to Minglewood's Nova Scotia home might find anything from BB King's tribute to Louis Jordan on his CD player, to Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road or Diana Krall's first album.
Whether a visitor would find him writing is another question.
It's not a process he's very disciplined about.
"I go through periods where I do some writing and periods where I don't do any, I'm not a person who sits down and says, okay, from 9 until noon, I'm writing. I can't do that."
His best songs just seem to happen.
"Usually, whenever I've sat down and looked at it as work and written songs, they're not songs that stand up, I usually end up not playing them for any length of time.
"The one's I write that either happen from the heart or something I know about; seeing somebody else go through something or going through it myself. When I write about something I know about it usually ends up being a song I continue to do."
Through a career that has spanned a quarter of a century, Minglewood continues to think of himself as lucky. "I have a loyal following of fans - a core base so that I've been able to play even when I haven't had a new product out.
"I can't say I'm wealthy, but I'm healthy and happy. I love doing what I do and always have. And that's play music."