Biography
April 17, 2009 – Calgary Herald – Calgary
Masters uses music to stoke hockey fever
The good old hockey game is the best game you can name, and the best local troubadour you can name is likely country and western singer Matt Masters. So when the Calgary Flames began seeking new music entertainment for fans at the Saddledome during intermissions, it made perfect sense to spark a deal with local talent.
October 2, 2008 METRO – Toronto
MUST SEE - Don Coyote
Calgary Performance artists Matt Masters and Terrance Houle, along with a six-piece band, present a western cabaret inspired by the classic Don Quixote. It’s a tale of a 21-century Calgarian whose obsession with all things western leaves him believing he’s a cowboy troubadour, roaming the land in search of the western aesthetic.
October 2, 2008 – Toronto Star
Nuit Blanche Festival Twelve Exhibitions not to Miss
# 8: Don Quixote, the 17th-century Spanish novel, provides the conceptual framework for Don Coyote (2008), the quixotic cowboy cabaret featuring Calgarians Matt Masters and Terrance Houle in a six-piece band at St. James Cathedral (65 Church St.).
October 2, 2008 - NOW Magazine - Toronto
Don Coyote, a multimedia cabaret performance that riffs on both Cervantes’s Don Quixote and sidekick westerns, is the work of Calgary’s Matt Masters, a country and western singer in the band The Gentlemen of the Rodeo. It was a hit at the Glenbow Museum this summer.
July 10, 2008 – Calgary Herald
Best Bet in Stampede Theatre
Don Coyote - Matt Masters and Terrance Houle, two iconoclastic Calgary artists, have teamed up to create Don Coyote, a western musical cabaret inspired by the Don Quixote story, only transposed to Calgary. Think Cabaret meets Lonesome Dove meets Mayor Dave Bronconnier, with a dash of Stampede lore thrown in.
June 2008 – Avenue Magazine Online
Living The Cowboy Code - Masters and Houle create a Calgary epic in Don Coyote
By Anthony Charron
Masters weaves the well-written and well-delivered story in amongst a number of country songs backed by a full band, Don Coyote is a tongue-in-cheek, but still meaningful, look at the city we live in, and what we can all do to make it better. It is a new, original and entertaining work worth seeing.
February 2008 Calgary Sun
Matt Masters 30 Day Challenge
Matt Masters, country and western singer songwriter made national headlines in the summer of 2005 when he embarked on a 100-show tour to celebrate the Alberta Centennial. Now, Matt Masters & the Gentlemen of the Rodeo takes his challenge locally – playing 30 live gigs in 30 days challenging the rest of Calgary to play along.
November 2006 - Montreal Gazette
Review of Centennial Swell By: Mike Regenstrief
Is there a new wave of traditional country and western artists coming out of Alberta? If Corb Lund’s recent success and the emergence of Matt Masters is the beginning of a trend, it’s a welcome one. On this debut CD, Masters shows off a voice that sounds like he was born to sing country music, story-telling songs that reflect the lives of everyday folk and a style that variously evokes such icons as Sun-era Johnny Cash, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Ian Tyson and George Jones while remaining very much himself.
Among the highlights in this 15-song set are Whiskey Business, a lyrically clever honky tonk shuffle, and Belleville Belvedere, a minor key ballad that describes a fire burning down a small town hotel.
***1/2
November 2006 – CJSW.com
TODAY! Listen to the Road Pops between 4 and 6pm MST for what is sure to be a lovely conversation between Grant and Kevin and Calgary's finest country singer Matt Masters! The heartbreakin', baritone voiced man about town is going to be playing at Broken City tonight to celebrate his latest disc, Centennial Swell!
www.cjsw.com/about/radio_blog.html
November 8, 2006 - Red Deer Express
By Mark Weber
As for Matt Masters, this guy wields a remarkable voice – a true country and western singer in the traditional sense. A historian with a keen sense of the modern era, Masters intertwines his western heritage with a forward-looking vision.
July/August 2006 - Avenue Magazine - Calgary
New dogs, old tricks
Masters is a walking encyclopedia on Alberta's music history, full of knowledge
August 25, 2006 - the Guardian, Charlottetown PEI
Matt Masters takes stage tonight at Trailside
Masters is a western Canadian singer songwriter with a penchant for history and a big deep voice that often draws comparisons to the man in black. A natural storyteller and an engaging performer, Masters writes mostly about true life experiences and is inspired by his prairie setting. As seating is limited reservations are recommended.
July 2006 - Beatroute Magazine - Alberta
Beateroute Stampede Round Up
After drawling his way across the province with his brilliant "100 gigs in Alberta's Centennial Year gimmick (yes, as a matter of fact I DO wish i had thought of that) the boy has carved out his name as a real country traditionalist.
September 3rd 2005 - Globe and Mail
Alberta Found
by David Ebner
Six months, 100 gigs and a lot of pig roasts. Matt Masters got up close and personal with his Albertan brethren and learned a thing or two about his home province,
The gig list — a winding scroll of 100 shows throughout Alberta to celebrate the province’s centennial — is odd: Seniors homes, a casino, a cowboy poetry gathering, several schools and a friend’s wedding. Also, several times, Broken City, a downtown Calgary indie music bar. There was a fishing derby along the way, too. This unlikeliest selection of venues forms just a short part of an epic six-month adventure, one that has seen country troubadour Matt Masters cover roughly 25,000 kilometres. It ended Thursday, on Alberta’s 100th birthday, as Masters and his band, the Gentlemen of the Rodeo, played gig No. 100 under the Calgary Tower as part of the Brilliant City festival. History permeates the project.
August 26 - September 1st 2005 - Swerve Magazine - Calgary
Thursday: Brilliant City
In a city that arbitrarily claims the moniker of Cowtown, Matt Masters is what the city claims to be: an urban entity with an old country soul in the vein of Johhny Horton. You can catch Masters twice this week: once for his wrap party on Monday at Broken City for the 100th - and final - stop of his centennial tour (he checked in with Swerve at gig 50); then, put on your boots and scoot downtown for Brilliant City, where Masters helps kick off Calgary's party for the province's 100th birthday.
August 2005 – Calgary Herald, by Nick Lewis.
A century of Alberta in song.
We are at show 92 of 100 that (Matt) Masters is playing across Alberta to celebrate the province’s centennial, a summer tour that has found him playing Alberta songs from every decade of the past 100 years. In doing so he’s spreading Alberta’s forgotten musical heritage.
June 2005 - NXNE program guide
Matt Masters and the Gentlemen of the Rodeo
After establishing himself as a local country legend in Calgary, he has become a key member of the Toronto alt-country scene while also touring nationally. His big deep voice has elicited Johnny Cash comparisons, while his clear passion for Canada recalls that of Stompin' Tom.
For more information, photographs, interviews,
Contact: Matt Burgener 403-228-6270
burgtheburg@yahoo.ca
or visit www.mattmasters.com
Instrumentation
Matt Masters - Vocal, acoustic guitar
also performs with his band "the Gentlemen of the Rodeo."
Discography
2008 - Don Coyote - soundtrack
2007- Minesing Unplugged compilation
2006 - Centennial Swell - Dollartone Records
2004 - 100 years from then compilation - Hijinx & Capers records
2003 - Calgary Does Conners compilation - Saved by Radio Records
2003 - The Alberta Reporter - Moustache Wax Records
Links
| http://www.mattmasters.com |
| Matt Masters website |