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

-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

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,

, 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