Time After Time, a memory returns to Jake Mathews that foretells his country music future.
"When I was 14, I traveled to Canada's Wonderland in Toronto and entered this booth where you could record the song of your choice," recalls the laid back Sudbury-born singer and songwriter. "I sang Randy Travis' 'I Told You So,' and after I recorded it, they played it over the loudspeaker while I hung around with my friends." A female passerby, upon hearing Jake's voice, stopped and turned to him. "Is that you?" she asked. When he nodded in the affirmative, she offered some priceless encouragement. "If you ever put out an album of your own, I'd buy it," she said. Mathews never got her name, but she confirmed what thousands of others have discovered since he exploded on the scene with 2002's Jake Mathews: this artist is a keeper.
Several Top 20 hits and a couple of CCMA Rising Star nominations later, Mathews continues to fulfill his destiny as one of Canada's most exciting new country talents with the outstanding Time After Time, his first effort for Toronto-based Open Road Recordings, also home to The Wilkinsons and Doc Walker. Aside from the Dean Dillon-Al Anderson-penned title track, which was the most-added song to Canadian country radio upon its release earlier this year, Time After Time offers ten additional dyed-in-the-wool real-life slices of country living in contemporary times. The values and emotions expressed in such unforgettable songs as the beer-budget, daily-grind anthem "Payin' Your Dues" and the melancholy loneliness of "That's Why They Call It Cheating" to the more sophisticated life lesson of the story song "He Never Learned How", are identifiable and applicable to everyone, from your average Joe and Josephine to those with champagne tastes.
"Country music has an honesty about it that's really appealing," says Mathews. "And no song tells a better story than a country song. That's what attracted me to the music in the first place." And whether you're line-dancing to the irresistible honky-tonk shuffle "My Heart Won't Let You Leave My Mind" or grooving to the Cloud Nine love anthem "Better World," the stylistic diversity will appeal to you whether you love McGraw and Chesney or Haggard and Strait. "I looked for songs that would connect with people and ones I would love to perform in front of them," Mathews states. "Especially songs with a traditional edge."
Time After Time earmarks the continuing journey of an artist destined for bigger and better things, hoping to entertain and touch everyone he can along the way.
"I appreciate people and I love music," says Jake Mathews. "It's an honour and a privilege to combine these two loves and contribute something meaningful in the process."
And one you'll want to come back to Time After Time.
