Matt Masters Returns with 'All-Western Winners,' Canadian Dates

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Jun 3, 2011

After travelling the world over with his classic country and western tunes, Matt Masters (aka the Albertan Reporter) is back with a new album. Since 2007's Centennial Swell, a record we said drew from "the honky-tonk and outlaw books of sound," the satin-shirted, Smithbilt-sporting singer has nabbed some gigs singing at Calgary Flames home games and taken his Prairie-indebted tunes as far as Mexico and the Arabian Desert. Back at home, for the time being, the man is ready to release his next set of homegrown honky-tonkers, All-Western Winners.

A press release describes the collection as "the blueprint for what is coming in Canadian country music," adding that it's "grabbed the sounds of the prairie by their roots and used the future as a fertilizer to grow a crop of Canadian songs that will serve to feed a generation."

While eight of the cuts on the collection take traditional cowboy songs into the 21st century, Masters tips his ten-gallon hat to the past via covers of Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Snake Farm" and Marty Robbins's "Don't Worry 'bout Me." You can download dusty first single "Highways" here.

All-Western Winners will be released by Saved By Radio on July 1. You can catch the country singer crooning the new cuts on a number of upcoming dates. See the full schedule below.

All-Western Winners:

1. "Highways"
2. "Two Girls"
3. "Oh Saskatchewan"
4. "The Recovery"
5. "Candle Flame"
6. "Snake Farm"
7. "All-Western Winners"
8. "Donʼt Worry ʻbout Me"
9. "Belleville Belvedere"
10. "Desert Rose"

Tour dates:

6/4 Camrose, AB - Jaywalkers Jamboree
7/1-2 Dauphin, MB - CountryFest
7/8 Calgary, AB - The Palomino
7/21-24 Calgary, AB - The Calgary Folk Festival
8/20 Calgary, AB - The Spaghetti Western Festival
9/22 Calgary, AB - The Ironwood

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