Blues and roots music singer-songwriter-guitarist Matt O’Ree has followed the course of action recommended decades ago by folk-blues singer Richie Havens.
When younger musicians came to Havens seeking advice on how to obtain that all-elusive major record label contract, he urged them to put out their own records and sell them at their own gigs. In this way, the artist avoids anyone meddling with their recording career, i.e., they maintain control of what they record and how they do it, cover art, and the all-important publishing and “royalties” the record company often controls.
Indeed, Havens’ advice would turn out to be prophetic in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, as record companies merged and merged again, to the point now where there are three major conglomerates. Dozens of independent record labels continue to exist without the kind of marketing dollars behind them that the big boys have.
“My band and I are essentially a small recording and touring business,” O’Ree explains by phone last month before setting out on an extensive tour of Europe in June that included performances in England, Germany, Romania, and Spain.
“We don’t have deep pockets. We take our bus around the States,” he added. On Saturday, July 13, O’Ree’s tour bus will pull up at Unionville Vineyards in Ringoes for the annual Sourland Mountain Festival, where the Matt O’Ree Band will headline the day’s music. Others on the bill at this year’s festival include Christine Havrilla and Gypsy Fuzz, The Adventures of Matte Black, and Tony and The Trees. Tony Kennette of Tony & The Trees will emcee the festival, and plenty of food and a few craft and environmental advocacy vendors will be on site. Of course, patrons are free to sample Unionville’s award-winning wines.
O’Ree was raised in Leonardo and moved to Holmdel as a youngster. His father, retired from the Air Force, worked for IBM in Cranford for many years, while his mother worked as a housewife and for the Holmdel Police Department as a dispatcher. He is the fourth of five siblings; his youngest brother is a decade younger than he is.
Pressed as to how his fascination with blues and roots-rock began, O’Ree credits one of his older brothers.
“It was mostly through my older brother, Chris, who was bringing home these records. One day he came home with Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Are You Experienced?’ and that made me want to dig into his influences. Specifically, I remember riding my bike to the Holmdel Library one day to get more information on Jimi Hendrix, because I was just smitten with him. I was so mesmerized by him, and the only way you could find any information on Jimi at that time was to go to the library. I began reading different stories and articles about Jimi’s influences, and that took me to John Lee Hooker and B.B. King and Buddy Guy and Albert Collins.”
While still in high school, he befriended Mark Costello, whose father was a vice president at the Kramer Guitar Factory in Neptune, next to Asbury Park, so he got tours of the factory and all their latest innovations and met musicians like Billy Hector, thankfully still on the scene, and the late Bruce Wacker.
“I met a lot of people through Mark that had a big influence on me and pushed me to work harder to become a better guitar player.”
But O’Ree’s most important local influence was the legendary South Plainfield-based guitar teacher and player Bernie Brausewetter.
“I first saw Bernie at Art Stock’s Playpen in Sayreville,” he recalls. “It was a Wednesday night, and Bernie was opening for Edgar Cayce, a band led by Kenny Dubman, whom I’ve become really good friends with over the years. I was going to see Edgar Cayce on a regular basis because I loved Kenny’s playing. Then one night I was there and Bernie opened for him. He came out with a Hendrix-styled trio, just guitar, bass, and drums, and I was instantly transported back to when I was 13 years old and listening to Hendrix records. Once I heard Bernie, then it became a matter of, ‘How am I going to get there, how am I going to get that good?’ I began asking Bernie for advice and taking lessons from him,” O’ Ree recalls.
Brausewetter, an only child who had his mother move into the house he owned in South Plainfield after his father passed away just after retiring to Pennsylvania, led a hugely influential blues-rock trio around the Garden State and New York City for many years beginning in 1990, B.B. & The Stingers. Brausewetter put out a handful of well received compact discs on his own label.
In his early 20s, O’Ree was hanging around Bob Butterfield’s recording studio in Red Bank a lot and borrowed The Stingers’ bassist, Bill Cherensky and drummer, Butterfield, for his earliest attempts at recording his own songs. Since then, O’Ree has released more than a dozen discs on his own label and gotten a lot more sophisticated in his approaches to recording. O’Ree’s independent releases have garnered recognition for his band all over the U.S., parts of Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and more recently, Europe.
Since 2010, the band has been touring nationally via bus, and in recent years, he purchased a newer, more fuel-efficient bus to keep costs down.
“We tour a lot. Prior to this I did some teaching out of the home, but we’ve always played as many live gigs as we could. I’m still teaching from home because I love teaching,” he says, adding that was another thing he learned from his mentor, the late Brauswetter.
O’Ree’s releases, available from his website and at most festival and club gigs, include “88 Miles,” “Chalk It Up,” “Shelf Life,” “Live at The Stone Pony,” “Funk #49,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hoochie Koo,” “Whole Lotta Nothin’,” “Izabella,” “Better As I Go,” “Brotherhood” [with a cameo vocal from Bruce Springsteen,] and his latest, “Hand In Glove.”
“We did work with an independent label for ‘Brotherhood,’ and they helped us get the record out in timely fashion, but in the end, you are pretty much better off on your own,” O’Ree explains.
“Again, it was the old problem of letting the rest of the world know the album exists. That’s where you have to spend a lot of money with marketing, promotion, and advertising.”
With no major booking agency behind them, the Matt O’Ree Band has forged their own path to gigs in California, motorcycle rallies in Sturgis South Dakota, and all over the rest of the U.S. via word-of-mouth and their website. His bandmates include rootsy singer-songwriter Eryn Shewell, who was living in Hightstown prior to marrying O’Ree in September, 2017; keyboardist Matt Wade; drummer John Hummel; bassist Lex Lehman; and backing vocalist Layonne Holmes, who has deep gospel roots.
As for the future of the Matt O’Ree Band, a small recording and touring business he started more than 25 years ago, “we’re hopeful that the European market is going to continue to be a way to get more name recognition, and we’re hopeful our new album ‘Hand In Glove’ is going to open up some doors for us. We’re excited about it.”
“Everything is going in a positive direction; we just have to press on, keep our noses to the grindstone, and keep doing as much as we can.”
Sourland Mountain Festival, Unionville Vineyards, 9 Rocktown Road, Ringoes. Saturday, July 13, 3 to 8:30 p.m. Rain or shine. Register. $35 to $40. www.sourlandmountainfest.com.
More information on the Matt O’Ree Band: www.mattoreeband.com.
