Wendy Matthews - Biography

Australian singing legend

Wendy Matthews has a reputation as an artist par excellence with a sublime, expressive voice that never fails to move those who hear it.

This is exemplified by the reality that Wendy’s music is now in more than a million homes in Australia – all her albums to date have multi-platinum status. There are few artists in Australia that can cite Wendy’s credentials, seven ARIAS, 19 singles and 7 top selling albums.

Wendy has an immense talent to capture and define a diverse range of styles in her music. She takes songs from every genre and makes them her own, from jazz to blues, from rock to gospel, from soul to outright infectious pop and then, of course, there are the beautiful ballads.

Born in Montreal Canada, Wendy joined her first band and left home as a teenager, busking her way across the USA to Los Angeles where she met Glenn Shorrock who invited her to tour with him in Australia in 1982.

Wendy immediately became an in-demand session singer, appearing on many commercial jingles and backing vocals for the The Model's Out of Mind Out of Sight and became a semi-permanent member of the band. She also sang on albums by The Rockmelons, Jimmy Barnes, Tim Finn, Richard Clapton and Icehouse.

In 1987, Wendy collaborated with Kate Ceberano on the ABC-TV soundtrack for the series Stringer. You’ve Always Got the Blues was released the next year reaching the Top 5 national charts.

Her first number one hit in Australia was as lead singer of the group Absent Friends with the song I Don’t Want To Be With Nobody But You.

Wendy then went into the studio to record her solo debut, Émigré (Double Platinum) which earned her the Best Female Artist and Best Debut Single at 1990 ARIA Awards. This was followed by the Triple Platinum album Lily and in 1992 she picked up the ARIA for Best Female Artist and Best Single and again in 1993 Best Female Artist. The Day You Went Away was the highest selling single of 1993 and single of the year.

Wendy then followed up with another two studio albums The Witness Tree and Ghosts. In 2001 Wendy released Beautiful View featuring the hauntingly beautiful title track. 2004 saw the release of the chilled-out Café Naturale, an eclectic suite of songs which immediately evokes a feeling of familiarity.

Wendy is currently working on her ninth album, a wonderful collection of favourite songs that inspired her. As she puts it “an album of singers who made the singer – women who made the woman.”

Wendy Matthews' Official Website