Biography
From Grandpa I got my storytelling. His visits were rare, as he and grandma lived in St. Catherines Ontario, and we lived just outside Calgary, Alberta. They spoiled all 8 of us children (according to my dad) but the biggest gift Grandpa always gave us was to tell us bedtime stories of the “olden days”.

Grandpa’s stories usually involved exciting stuff like runaway teams of horses, shooting at wolves, or somebody getting body parts torn off. His tales were filled with gestures and sound effects. He really had a way of bringing them to life. And he listened when a kid told him a story. He made you feel your stories were important.

From Mom and Dad I got music. My Dad and my other Grandpa were both musicians. Grandpa Hubele (of whom I knew very little) was a very good organ player. My dad played fiddle in his early years, touring around southern Alberta with a country dance band. He and Mom would, very occasionally, play duets on fiddle and piano when we were little kids.

I can remember waiting til my parents went out. Since I was the oldest, I often babysat my brothers and sisters. I would sneak into Dad’s fiddle case to take out the fiddle and play it. Except I was always trying to make it sound like a guitar, and I played it like one.

We moved back and forth across the country, from Ontario to Alberta and back many times as I grew up. Dad kept trading up for jobs, and I was in a new school almost every year. I became a loner and a rebel. I turned to humor to make up for my small size. I’d find the biggest kid in class, figure out how to make him laugh, and I didn’t have to worry about the rest of the bullies. It pays to have friends in high places.

I believe I had an undiagnosed hearing problem caused by a trauma (now confirmed as a severe hearing loss). I never could quite understand the lyrics on the radio which was always on in our house, so I made up my own.

My earliest memories were of crossing the big empty fields which made up the neighborhoods of my youth, singing at the top of my lungs and making up words as I went along. My mom says she could pick me out of the flocks of kids coming home from school. I’d be waving my arms and singing to myself as I walked across the prairie.

I started writing songs in a serious way when I was 21 years old. A friend, who had been showing me how to play guitar, and I went out to live on the beach on Vancouver Island at Pacific Rim Park. I was picking away when a simple line kept repeating itself in my head. I wrote it down, and in ten minutes I had a song. It seemed to open flood gates, and for the next 2 or 3 years I wrote a song or two a week. I average about a song a month now. But, they are better songs.

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Biography, page 2

To write successfully, I usually have to be alone, have all my chores done and time on my hands. Words and melody most often develop at the same time. It takes from 10 minutes to 1 hour to write a song. It takes me two weeks to learn it. I like to wrap a song around a good story line. They always come from my own experiences.

I was fascinated with the blues from the get-go. I came in through the back door. J.J. Cale, then Hot Tuna. Then B.B. King, Freddy King, and Muddy Waters.

When I heard Bonnie Raitt play slide guitar, I was gone. I had to learn how to do that. I followed her trail back to Mississippi Fred McDowell. “You want rock, you gonna have to put me in a rockin’ chair. I plays the straight and natural blues.”

I also paid attention to the songwriters, my favorites being Paul Simon, Harry Nillson, Willie Dixon, and Tom Waits.

My interest in jazz developed through my association with other musicians like Calgary’s late Chuck Tracy, a gruff, funny, kind of crazy lounge musician. He introduced me to Tom Waits, Mose Allison, and Fats Waller amongst others.

As well, it became a habit to listen to the great Alberta radio station CKUA on Saturdays. Bill Coull’s Jazz Show was a fifteen year course in ‘Everything You Should Know About Jazz’.

I also have a life-long addiction to comedy movies and comic books. One of my Dad’s jobs was as a projectionist in a small town. Once a week on Saturday night the local community hall was turned into a theatre. I was very young (3 years til 7 years old) but those old black and white 16mm movies of the Marx Bros, Chaplin, and W.C. Fields remain deep in my psyche.

I think this was a great influence on my writing. Most of my songs have a little humor and a strange twist to them.

I have worked as a laborer and heavy equipment operator and truck driver since leaving the University of Calgary after 4 years of unrelated courses and wandering interests. Previous to that, I had worked at the CPR as a ticket clerk. I began working at age 14 at the steel mill where my father worked. I did not graduate from high school.

I have written songs for 32 years. Recording began for me in 1978 with the Acme Sausage Company with Holger Petersen broadcast on CKUA. Since then, I have been on countless radio and tv programs. I have recorded 6 albums of original material, and I just finished recording my demo for the 7th, and most exciting, CD - ‘Down In Davis Bay’.

•  Somewhere down the midnight cafe

Biography

Matt Harlan is a songwriter's songwriter. He composes scenic landscapes and pointed statements disguised as songs. Often non-linear, but always melodic, Harlan's works confront social norms, celebrate lives overlooked, or just wax poetic about coffee and bus stops. Whatever the inspiration, the music is always heartfelt and genuine.

Born and raised in Texas, Harlan soaked up the richness of the state and its song-smiths while bouncing between big cities and small towns. Always in love with music, he eventually learned to play and write it. From '60s pop in kindergarten to alt-country in college and all the angst in between, Harlan draws from a range of influences, interpreting a generation steeped in plastic and filtered through the Hill Country limestone.

After gigging in rock bands around San Antonio and Austin, Harlan dropped the pick and the power chords to develop his own unique fingerstyle guitar technique. Now back in Houston he is working to promote his earthy, socially conscious sound, which is continually evolving.

Accomplishments

In 2003 Matt Harlan won the Kerrville Folk Festival's Texas University Songwriters Competition based on the merit of his songs “Suitcase Blues,” “Warm November,” and “The Optimist.” Winning the competition allowed him to play on the Threadgill's Stage at the Festival along with other songwriters from Texas universities.

The Houston Fort Bend Songwriter's Association (HFBSA) has nominated Matt Harlan's “Heavy Steel and Spinning Wheels” for their 2006 Song of the Year award.

Matt Harlan was recently offered the chance to play at the legendary Anderson Fair for its songwriters showcase series. Details can be found on Matt Harlan's websites and at www.andersonfair.com.

•  Good Folk Story
•  Thoughful folk song