the iconic wendy matthews
THE CHANTEUSE IS SET TO DELIGHT AUDIENCES UNDER THE STUNNING BACKDROP OF JIMBOUR HOMESTEAD
You can sense Wendy Matthews’ sincerity and warmth – even over the phone, and I immediately feel at ease. I’ve been nervous about this interview. Not only did the Canadianborn singer feature heavily in the soundtrack of my childhood, her hauntingly beautiful The Day you Went
Away is still the one song, after all these years, that can immediately reduce me to tears. Which can be a problem – when I’m grocery shopping. Wendy laughs when I tell her. “That happens to a lot of people, it’s special like that,” she says.
In early May, the iconic musician with a career spanning over 30 years, will join friends and fellow troubadours for the inaugural Day on the Plain Festival at Jimbour Amphitheatre. She’ll share the stage with Frankie J Holden and Wilbur Wilde, Joe Camilleri and The Black Sorrows, Richard Clapton, Glenn Shorrock and The Eurogliders in a day dedicated to Australian rock.
“I’ve heard the space is quite spectacular and outdoor festivals really are my new favourite thing,” she laughs. “It’s so nice to be outside with the grass under your feet and sunshine and good food and family.
“It’s such a different experience from the dark, night-time club scene.”
“It’s a bit like getting the old gang back together, we always have fun,” Wendy says of good friend Grace Knight (The Eurogliders). “She’s not only talented – she’s a great human being.”
“And I’m still very good friends with Glenn (Shorrock), I stay with them whenever I’m in Sydney.”
It was Glenn in fact, who discovered a teenage Wendy when The Little River Band passed through Los Angeles. At the time, she was working as a session singer and selling hand-made jewellery on Melrose Avenue to make ends meet. Glenn asked her to sing backing vocals
on his solo tour.
Wendy toured in Australia, found work in Sydney and stayed.
During the 1980s she went onto work with some of the biggest Australian artists of the time including Icehouse, Richard Clapton, Tim Finn and Jimmy Barnes. She additionally featured on some of the best-selling Australian albums of the era, performing vocals on The Rockmelons’ Tales of The City and
You’ve Always Got the Blues, an album of duets with Kate Ceberano.
In the late ’80s she recorded lead vocals on I Don’t Want to be with Nobody
but You, with Absent Friends, a collaboration between herself and then-partner and Models band member, Sean Kelly.
After a year or so, Absent Friends disbanded and in the early ’90s and Wendy recorded her first solo album, Émigré. The singles Token Angels and
Let’s Kiss (Like the Angels Do) became Top 40 hits.
Her biggest hit was yet to come. For her follow-up album, Lily, Wendy was sent a song from a British electronic act.
The Day you Went Away was originally a dance track that Wendy slowed to a piano ballad.
The song went on to be the biggest-selling Australian single of 1992 and ARIA’S Song of the Year. More importantly Wendy says, listeners developed an emotional attachment to
The Day you Went Away and the song is still being rediscovered by younger generations.
“You really couldn’t get away from it on the radio for a few years there,” Wendy laughs.
“The response I still get from it is beautiful.”
Leaving Sydney and moving to a property near Coffs Harbour in 2003, Wendy started her own music label and has released several albums since.
She, released in 2008, is a collection of songs by her favourite female artists including Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt and Linda Ronstadt.
The Welcome Fire (2013), Wendy’s first album of original songs in 12 years, saw soulful and poignant collaborations with Josh Pyke and Megan Washington.
Her latest offering Billie and Me: The
White Room Sessions, delves into the beautifully crafted songs of Billie Holiday, recorded over two days in a huge, empty piano factory.
Wendy says she is writing an album in between performing all over Australia.
“I’ll be performing a little bit of everything, some newer songs as well as some of the old ones,” she says of her performance at Jimbour.
“I like to mix it up a bit, but I think audiences always like hearing the songs they are familiar with.”
It means so many things to so many people. And when I perform it I feel like I can really connect with my audience. I usually focus on a few people when I sing that song and I can look in their eyes and see that it means something to them.”