#Ian Matthews #country rock #folk rock #British folk rock #Americana #singer-songwriter #1970s
A vital figure in the history of British folk, Ian Matthews was a founding member of the pioneering U.K. folk-rock band Fairport Convention before he went on to found his own group, Matthews' Southern Comfort, and later moved on to a solo career. Matthews possesses a warm and expressive tenor voice and a talent for songwriting. While he drew from British folk traditions in his work, his greatest inspiration came from American country, folk, and roots music, and he blended their timeless themes with a hippie-fied pastoral feel that was warm and sweet or sorrowful, depending on the song. Though he would dabble in soft rock, power pop, and synth pop in the late '70s and early '80s, he always returned to the sun-dappled sound of the country-folk hybrid that was his trademark. From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ian-matthews-mn0000768231/biography
"Seven Bridges Road" is a song written by American musician Steve Young, recorded in 1969 for his Rock Salt & Nails album. It has since been covered by many artists, the best-known version being a five-part harmony arrangement by English musician Ian Matthews in 1973, later recorded by the American rock band the Eagles in 1980. "Seven Bridges Road" is an ode to Woodley Road (County Road 39, Montgomery County, Alabama), a rural two-lane road which runs south off East Fairview Avenue - the southern boundary of the Cloverdale neighborhood of Montgomery, Alabama - at Cloverdale Road, and which features seven bridges: three pairs of bridges, and the seventh approximately 1 mile south by itself. The song's composer Steve Young, stated that and his friends "used to go out to Woodley Road carousing around.” “I wound up writing this song that I never dreamed anybody would even relate to, or understand, or get. And I still don't understand why it was so successful, actually.” "I don't know exactly what the song means. Consciously, I just wrote a song about a girl and a road in south Alabama. But I think on another level the song has something kind of cosmic that registers in the subconscious: the number seven has all of these religious and mystical connotations”. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_Road
