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For many years, Country Music has been dominating Matt Walker Smith'
life. It all began at the tender age of eleven years after
getting a radio recorder as a birthday present. With this set
he recorded every song he happened to hear on the radio.
The Johnny Cash song “The One On The Right Is On The Left” was
one of them, a song which from then on was to bring about an
essential change in his life fascinating him so much that he
incessantly played it again and again from morning to night.
He just had to get hold of his first Johnny Cash LP. Other LPs
followed, and after a few years his collection of Country records
approached a four-figure number of pieces. While his friends
of the same age were more in favor of pop music and German New
Wave (NDW = “Neue Deutsche Welle”), the heart of
Matt Walker was beating almost exclusively for Country Music.
But soon, however, the pieces of work pressed into vinyl did
not fully satisfy him any longer. After attending a concert of
the American Country singer Scotty Riggins, he developed his
love for live music. But unfortunately, the opportunities to
see such concerts came along just too rarely. So what was he
to do?
The answer was very simple! When there is only little chance
to listen to live music, you just have to perform music on your
own. He got hold of his first guitar, learnt the first three
chords (meanwhile, these are already four…) and retreated
to the background in order to learn how to sing.
Doing this, he was heard by some of his colleagues at that time
who promptly urged him to play at a barbecue. The same colleagues
also invited him, some weeks later, to the “Blockhütte”,
a popular Country & Western bar on the “Große
Freiheit” in Hamburg. Here, his first public stage performance
took place. He had “tasted blood”.
Through the help of Scotty Riggins, who provided him with song
lyrics, he got to know the Country band “Seldom Sober” of
Bremerhaven. Scotty had just joined the group as a singer and
took Matt with him to many concerts in the US facilities in Bremerhaven
and in the surroundings. This way, he also met the steel guitarist
Hermann Lammers Meyer who was a member of “Seldom Sober”,
too.
When, some weeks later, the band was looking for a possibility
of transport for their equipment, Matt Walker Smith offered his services
since a suitable vehicle was at his disposal. And so he began
his career with “Seldom Sober” as a driver and roadie.
When later on Scotty Riggins left the band at the beginning of
the nineties, they searched for a new singer and they found him
in the person of Matt Walker Smith who has been holding his own to
the very day as band leader of “Seldom Sober”.
Over the years, he established contact with numerous other musicians
of the Country scene and today he again and again is most welcome
to appear as a guest artist at many concerts of national and
international country stars such as “Emsland Hillbillies”, “Slow
Horses”, “Kentucky-Five”, Dean Collins, Paul
Mateki, Michael Ballew, Peter Caulton, Nils Tuxen, etc.
Furthermore, he now is also touring with a solo program featuring
his most favored Country songs. Regrettably, he has not published
a solo album yet but this is to change in the near future. Let`s
see what happens…
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