Cerys Matthews
BIOGRAPHY SUMMER 2010
It's been a busy few months. After releasing what is widely considered by media and music fans alike, to be the best album of her career in October last year, Cerys Matthews took the songs from "Don't Look Down"...
("A lovely new album ... Matthews knocks the doubters for six , with singing that contains everything , juance , understanding , authenticity" (4* The Times )
and incorporated them into what was more or less a one woman show on her October 2009 and April 2010 sell out UK tours. Telling her life in music and witty asides through the songs she has collected dating back from her childhood in Swansea through her travels around the world, as well as her now considerable catalogue of solo and band songs. It was a magical journey in song and anecdotes through the British Isles, Ireland and the southern states of the USA. The audiences loved it.
Following its success she is pleased to release a brand new album this year too. "TIR" was released on Rainbow City Records, Monday June 14th.
A labour of love, TIR publishes photos from her family archive from the 1880s to 1940s of people at work and play. Shopkeepers, farmers, horse-breakers, quarry men, mariners, tailors, organ players all make for a a great insight to the landscape that produced these songs.
Taking a mixture of songs, some from Victorian times , some hymns, some more obscure, and some huge great hulking classics of iconic stature like Bread of Heaven, Sosban Fach, Myfanwy and the National anthem, Cerys presents them in TIR almost as if they were freshly written, with voice and simple accompaniment and little else,just a tender appreciation and a thirst for their historical significance. The album also includes a duet with Bryn Terfel on the blacksmiths song Migldi Magldi.
There are 36 pages bursting with life with notes by Cerys and Roy Saer (of the Welsh folk society and St Fagan's). The whole package is a treasure trove of life in music and pictures.
This all happened amidst a busy schedule of radio and TV activities. Her weekday afternoon radio show on BBC Radio 6 ("Cerys on 6") saw the stations' afternoon ratings increase week on week. It is Cerys’ wide-ranging and discerning taste in music which led to this huge success, she featured live music from such diverse sources as The Kenyan Boys’ Choir, the Hypnotic brass Ensemble to her coverage of the summer festivals including a live feed direct from Glastonbury Festival, interviewing the likes of Kasabian, Dizzie Rascal, Ray Davies 2 many DJ's and Tom Jones. She will be going to Glastonbury this year with 6 music and BBC2 TV too and now hosts its Sunday morning show from 10-12.
Cerys has also had an incredible year in television, including writing and presenting a prime-time BBC2 documentary on Celtic poets, a documentary on Dorothy Squires, presenting the BBC Children In Need Show from Cardiff for the BBC TV , as well as completing the formation of her own TV and Radio production company, Rainbow City. Her work with radio outside of 6 Music has also seen her presenting a documentary on the history of the BBC's legendary Maida Vale Studios and also a documentary on Stax recording artists like Otis Redding for BBC Radio 2.
Continuing her support of Celtic poetry she also hosted her solo evening on Dylan Thomas at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea last year. In June she will embark on a trip to Dublin as the first non-Irish native to be invited to present a lecture on William Butler Yeats at the annual Yeats festival in the National Library of Ireland, Dublin.
Her most recent journey took her to America to make a documentary on a history of Female blues guitarists for Radio 4. This will air on June 22nd. She is also busy filming for a 5 part BBC 2 Music Programme to be screened in January 2011
Cerys is also a continued supporter of Shelter, honoring her role as vice president in every avenue she can.
For further details and to catch Cerys live visit: www.cerysmatthews.co.uk