Matt Hudgins
Athens, Georgia, United States
Music
Press
The album is simply produced and mixed in a lo-fi manner, as Hudgins haunts at the helm, vocally. The acoustic guitars are beautifully orchestrated, and the backing harmony vocals give it great color and balance. Recorded with the hiss of audio tape in the room, Better Days Are Coming features songs with both strong and dark themes of love and loss, insomnia and gun control, battling through life’s tough struggles, days and nights of jail time, dying young, the sirens of police cars, sons and daughters of the South, God, souls and seeking mercy, and just about everything else you can pack into a brilliant singer/songwriter album. - Performer Magazine
"This is not simply an ironic, tongue-in-cheek take on country (though irony is not at all lost on Hudgins, when the time is right). No, what's so wonderfully charming about the Shit-Hot Country Band and its new record is the honesty within each of the tunes. Beneath the excessive cuss words, the whiskey-soaked lines and stories about going to jail, you can see that Hudgins feels a deep comfort with this music that allows him to speak through it honestly." - The Red and Black
"Staunchly, if subtly, political and purposefully austere, Better Days Are Coming offers both a lamentation and a hard-earned glimmer of hope." - Flagpole
"As terrible as pop country has become, there are still many artists still creating fantastic works that recall the rambling, drunken, shit-kicking fun of the golden age of country music. This record is one of those fine examples. Recorded live over two days at the Caledonia Lounge in Athens, GA (my hometown), this album of original country classics will knock you flat on your ass with its precision and old-timey energy." - Moosick Revoos
"[Matt Hudgins has] kind of knocked it out of the park. Titled Better Days Are Coming, the album is a full-on diary of tragedy, heartache, desperation, desolation and, at times, glimmers of hope." - Flagpole
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
Matt Hudgins was born on an Army base in Virginia and raised in Austell, Georgia. Since a burst of creativity while living in Xalapa, Mexico in 2008, he has written and performed original country songs as a solo artist and since 2010 with his ten-piece band Matt Hudgins & His Shit-Hot Country Band. Heavily influenced by the classic country of his childhood, especially artists like Roger Miller, Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins, his songwriting also bears traces of less commercial musicians like Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Ray Wylie Hubbard.
As a solo artist or part of a small ensemble, songs range from sad tales of loss and despair to humorous narratives of attempts to get sober and riding on jet skis, all interspersed with stories and conversational interaction with the audience. Sets range from thirty minutes to several hours of original material, at the venue's discretion.
He has (mostly) called Athens, Georgia home since 1999.
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