Mike Mattison is an American musician and vocalist
of the
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
-winning blues rock/soul group, the
Tedeschi Trucks Band
The Tedeschi Trucks Band () is an American blues and blues rock group based in Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 2010, the band is led by married couple Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. Their debut album, '' Revelator'' (2011), won the 2012 Gramm ...
, as well as lead vocalist and co-founder of the
blues rock
Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes w ...
trio
Scrapomatic
Scrapomatic is an American blues trio, consisting of Paul Olsen, Mike Mattison and Dave Yoke. Mattison and Olsen formed the band as a duo in the mid-1990s, and often opened for The Derek Trucks Band, which Mattison served as lead vocalist fr ...
. Mattison's vocal sound has been described as "strong," with an "expressive blues voice".
As lead vocalist of Scrapomatic, he picked up a nomination for
Minnesota Music Awards
The Minnesota Music Academy is a non-profit music institution in Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 ...
best male vocalist, and both he and co-founder
Paul Olsen were also nominated for best
R&B Group.
Mattison was previously the lead vocalist of the Grammy Award-winning
Derek Trucks Band
The Derek Trucks Band was an American blues rock group founded by young slide guitar prodigy Derek Trucks, who began playing guitar and touring with some of blues and rock music's elite when he was just nine years old. After experimenting as an ...
and has been a main songwriter of all three bands. He is also an active essayist who publishes on music and poetry. Since 2013 Mattison and Ernest Suarez have edited “Hot Rocks: Songs and Verse,” an ongoing feature in ''Five Points: A Journal of Literature and Art''. He serves on the Council of the Association of Literary Critics, Scholars, and Writers.
Biography
Mattison was born and grew up in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
, Minnesota.
Before graduation from high school, he'd learned to play the
recorder
Recorder or The Recorder may refer to:
Newspapers
* ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper
* ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US
* ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
,
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
,
tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...
,
french horn
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...
,
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
,
bass, and guitar, in addition to his ability to sing. He was influenced by
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, the
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
, and
roots music. Mattison began exploring songwriting and performing with a friend who had also been raised in Minneapolis,
Paul Olsen. The pair met in 1993 at a
Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the funk bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive fu ...
concert, and began playing
R&B and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
-based music together afterward.
Mattison's education at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
brought him east, and he convinced Olsen to move with him.
Mattison graduated from Harvard with a degree in English and American literature. Mattison and Olsen continued playing and performing together, forming the duo they named Scrapomatic. In 2002,
Craig Street
Craig Street, born in Oakland, California, is a noted record producer.
Street moved with his family to Los Angeles at the age of 11, but returned to the Bay Area for his high school years. He began playing guitar at age 14, and was in a number ...
and John Snyder, the two record producers who had business ties with
blues rock
Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes w ...
musician
Derek Trucks
Derek Trucks (born June 8, 1979) is an American guitarist, songwriter, and founder of The Derek Trucks Band. He became an official member of The Allman Brothers Band in 1999. In 2010, he formed the Tedeschi Trucks Band with his wife, blues sing ...
independently suggested Mattison as the person to fill the newly vacated position of lead vocalist for The Derek Trucks Band.
Trucks, who was in New York City on business, had seen Mattison's photos and singing demos and was surprised to run into him in the subway. Mattison performed in several concerts of
The Derek Trucks Band
The Derek Trucks Band was an American blues rock group founded by young slide guitar prodigy Derek Trucks, who began playing guitar and touring with some of blues and rock music's elite when he was just nine years old. After experimenting as an a ...
, following this serendipitous meeting. Shortly afterward, he became a regular member of the band. He continues to maintain his position in Scrapomatic, however, with the duo frequently opening for The Derek Trucks Band.
After listening to the band play the arrangement of "
I Wish I Knew" in the style of
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone (), was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, ...
, an
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
host mentioned a "growly" quality to Mattison's voice, which Trucks was able to closely duplicate on the
slide guitar
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos tha ...
. The next song had a completely different sound altogether, a rendition of a song by
Skip James
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (June 9, 1902October 3, 1969) was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter. AllMusic stated: "This emotional, lyrical performer was a talented blues guitarist and arranger with an impressive ...
, where Mattison sang in a
falsetto
''Falsetto'' (, ; Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave.
It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous ed ...
.
Within The Derek Trucks Band, Mattison's voice has been described as an instrument, rather than that of a focal point as frontman.
In 2010, The Derek Trucks Band announced a hiatus, and Mattison joined the new group,
Tedeschi Trucks Band
The Tedeschi Trucks Band () is an American blues and blues rock group based in Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 2010, the band is led by married couple Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. Their debut album, '' Revelator'' (2011), won the 2012 Gramm ...
, as a backing vocalist and songwriter. One of his compositions, "Midnight in Harlem", appears on the DVD release of Eric Clapton's
Crossroads Guitar Festival
The Crossroads Guitar Festival is a series of music festivals and benefit concerts founded by Eric Clapton. The festivals benefit the Crossroads Centre founded by Eric Clapton, a drug treatment center in Antigua. The concerts showcase a variet ...
2010.
On July 17, 2013, Mattison launched a Kickstarter Project,
called "untitled-not-so-secret-mike-Mattison-solo-album" which successfully raised its funding goal on August 17, 2013.
Mattison released a solo CD ''You Can't Fight Love'' on Landslide Records (LDCD-1042) on June 3, 2014. In addition to recording and touring with the Tedeschi Trucks Band and Scrapomatic, Mattison and Ernest Suarez have held seminars on a literary genre they call Poetic Song Verse at various universities since 2016. Their book, ''Poetic Song Verse: Blues-based Popular Music and Poetry'', was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2021.
Discography
With Scrapomatic
* 2002 – ''Scrapomatic''
* 2006 – ''Alligator Love Cry''
Alligator Records
Alligator Records is an American, Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971. Iglauer was also one of the founders of the ''Living Blues'' magazine in Chicago in 1970.
History
Iglauer started the label using hi ...
* 2008 – ''Sidewalk Caesars'' Landslide Records
With The Derek Trucks Band
* ''
Live at Georgia Theatre'' (2004)
* ''
Songlines
A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the animist belief systems of the Aboriginal cultures of Australia which mark the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the Dr ...
'' (2006)
* ''
Songlines Live
''Songlines Live'' is the seventh album and second commercially released live recording and first DVD by American jam band The Derek Trucks Band, released in 2006 (see 2006 in music). It was recorded at the Park West in Chicago, Illinois.
Tr ...
'' (2006, DVD)
* ''
Already Free
''Already Free'' is the sixth studio album by The Derek Trucks Band. It was released in the United States on January 13, 2009 by Legacy Recordings. A European release followed on February 20, 2009. The album has received very positive reviews, an ...
'' (2009)
* ''
Roadsongs'' (2010)
With Tedeschi Trucks Band
* ''
Revelator'' (2011)
* ''
Everybody's Talkin'
"Everybody's Talkin (Echoes)" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Fred Neil in 1966 and released two years later. A version of the song performed by American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson became a hit in 1969, reachin ...
'' (2012)
* ''
Made Up Mind
''Made Up Mind'' is the second studio album from blues-rock group Tedeschi Trucks Band. It was released August 20, 2013 by Masterworks Records.
In 2014, it won a Blues Music Award in the 'Rock Blues Album of the Year' category.
Reception
Thom ...
'' (2013)
* ''
Let Me Get By'' (2016)
* ''
Live from the Fox Oakland'' (2017)
* ''
Signs'' (2019)
Solo
* ''You Can't Fight Love'' Landslide Records (2014)
*''Afterglow'' (Landslide Records, 2020)
Other contributions
* ''Soul Summit'' (2008) (Maysa,
Susan Tedeschi
Susan Tedeschi (; born November 9, 1970) is an American singer and guitarist. A multiple Grammy Award nominee, she is a member of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, a conglomeration of her band, her husband Derek Trucks’ and other musicians.
Early li ...
, and Mike Mattison)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mattison, Mike
Living people
Blues rock musicians
Grammy Award winners
Contemporary blues musicians
Columbia Records artists
Musicians from Minneapolis
American blues singers
American rock songwriters
Harvard University alumni
Songwriters from Minnesota
Singers from Minnesota
The Derek Trucks Band members
Tedeschi Trucks Band members
1969 births
African-American male songwriters
21st-century African-American male singers