Julie Matthews

Julie Matthews
Julie Matthews at the 2005 Cropredy Festival
Background information
Born	1963
Origin	Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
Genres	Folk music, country music, Americana
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and record producer
Years active	1981–present
Associated acts	Albion Country Band, Maartin Allcock, Blue Tapestry, Christine Collister, Daphne's Flight, Fairport Convention, David Hughes, Melanie Harrold, St Agnes Fountain, Chris Leslie, Pat Shaw, Helen Watson, Chris While, Kellie While, Pete Zorn
Website	whileandmatthews.co.uk

Julie Matthews is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. She has been a member of some of the most influential British folk duos and groups and is acknowledged internationally as a major songwriter, with her work being covered by a wide range of artists and groups. Her music is often classified as English folk, but contains strong American influences.

Julie Matthews was born in Sheffield, England. The daughter of a steel worker, she began playing guitar at the age of nine before teaching herself piano. While still at school she began songwriting and recording and was soon exploring what she would identify as the three primary jobs of her songwriting: ‘confession, observation and social comment’. She left school at 18 and began writing songs for a small London publishing company. After only a few months the company went bankrupt, forcing her to work for several years as a nightclub and hotel pianist throughout Europe, while still playing her own music at festivals.

Julie met Pat Shaw at a session at a local radio station and they formed a musical partnership, singing and playing together. However, while singing at the Feet First Festival in Derbyshire in 1990 Julie was seen by Ashley Hutchings, who invited her to join the Albion Band. With a lack of progress of their own projects Pat began a career in teaching and Julie joined the Albion Band and toured with them for three years. No studio album was created with this line-up, but recordings from this period surfaced as Captured (1995).

Julie and Pat Shaw released their first album, As Long As I Am Able, in 1992. As things began to move forward as part of a duo again Julie left the Albion Band in 1993 and was replaced by songwriter, guitarist and singer Chris While. Julie and Pat joined fellow south Yorkshire musicians Kathleen and Rosalie Deighton, Kate Rusby, and Kathryn Roberts for the highly regarded album Intuition (1993). The same year they released their debut album Lies and Alibi's. All the compositions were by Julie including 'Thorn Upon a Rose', which was subsequently covered as a single by Mary Black and which charted in Ireland and Japan, helping to establish Julie's growing reputation as a songwriter of note. The album received critical acclaim being nominated in the 'rising star' category of the Great British Country Music Awards; this led to the duo opening for Mary Chapin Carpenter at Her Majesty's Theatre in London in 1994. However, soon after Pat returned to her career in teaching and Julie rejoined the Albion Band.