Matthews Southern Comfort

Matthews Southern Comfort (MSC) is a British country rock/folk rock band, formed in 1970 by former Fairport Convention singer Ian (later Iain) Matthews. The original line-up consisted of Matthews, lead guitarist Mark Griffiths (who later become the bass player with the Shadows and the Everly Brothers), rhythm guitarist Carl Barnwell, bass player Pete Watkins, drummer Roger Swallow and pedal steel guitarist Gordon Huntley. Watkins and Swallow left the band after a few weeks and were replaced by bass player Andy Leigh and drummer Ray Duffy.

The band was formed to enable Matthews to tour following the success of his first post-Fairport album, released in early 1970, Matthews' Southern Comfort. The band recorded two more albums that year, Second Spring and Later That Same Year, before splitting up when Matthews abruptly quit at the height of their fame, shortly after their version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" became a worldwide hit. It reached the top of the UK music charts^[1][2][3] in October 1970, their only No. 1 hit single, and charted in several European countries, as well as reaching No. 5 in Canada^[4] and No. 23 in the Billboard Top 100 in the United States.^[5]

Now based in the Netherlands after a long career as a solo artist in the United States, Matthews has twice reformed the band in recent years with mostly Dutch musicians, first in 2010, releasing two new albums, Kind Of New^[6] and Kind Of Live (individually and as a combined tour issue^[7]), and again in 2017, releasing two further albums, Like A Radio^[8] in 2018 and The New Mine^[9] in 2020. A fifth MSC album, The Woodstock Album featuring 15 cover versions of songs played by various artists at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, was released in April 2023.