Matchbox is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 rockabilly

Rockabilly

Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...

 band

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 that formed in 1971, and is still active .

Career

Matchbox was formed in 1971 by Iain "Houndog" Terry, Fred Poke, Jimmy Redhead and Wiffle Smith. After 1978, the line-up consisted of Graham Fenton (lead vocalist), Steve Bloomfield (lead guitar

Lead guitar

Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

, vocals), Gordon Scott (rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

), Fred Poke (bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

) and Jimmy Redhead (drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

s). Redhead had left in 1973, Smith in 1977 and Lupton in 1978 to tour with Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...

. Dick Callan joined Matchbox on guitar, saxophone and violin until approximately 1985, writing many of the band's B-sides

A-side and B-side

A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...

.

The band's biggest hits

Hit record

A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

 include "Rockabilly Rebel" (Bloomfield, 1979), "Midnite Dynamos" (Bloomfield, 1980) and "Over The Rainbow

Over the Rainbow

"Over the Rainbow" is a classic Academy Award-winning ballad song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz, and was sung by Judy Garland in the movie...

" (adapted musical song, 1980). Their last single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

, "I Want Out" (Brian Hodgson/Ray Peters/Tony Colton, 1983) from their album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

, Crossed Line, was produced

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 together with Kirsty MacColl

Kirsty MacColl

Kirsty Anna MacColl was an English singer-songwriter.MacColl scored several pop hits from the early 1980s to the early 1990s...

.

In 1989, Graham Fenton put together a band with Iain Terry, Bob Burgos, Howard Gadd and Greg Gadd. They called themselves Graham Fenton's Matchbox. They recorded

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 six albums in the early 1990s. The original Matchbox line-up reformed in 1995. The band has been playing live all over Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 since their comeback, especially in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Holland, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 and Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. On occasions Iain Terry and Dave Dix were used as replacements for Bloomfield and Poke.

They have recorded one album since their full 1995 reunion.

Iain Terry
Born in ""

Fred Poke
Born in ""

Jimmy RedHead
Born in ""

Wiffle Smith
Born in ""

Band members

• Line-up 1971-1975: Wiffle Smith, Iain "Houndog" Terry, Fred Poke and Jimmy Redhead
• Line-up 1976-1977: Wiffle Smith, Steve Bloomfield, Fred Poke, Rusty Lupton and Wild Bob Burgos
• Line-up 1977-1978: Steve Bloomfield, Fred Poke, Bob Burgos and Graham Fenton
• Line-up 1978-1980: Steve Bloomfield, Fred Poke, Graham Fenton, Gordon Scott Waters and Jimmy Redhead
• Line-up 1980-1981: Steve Bloomfield, Fred Poke, Graham Fenton, Gordon Scott, Jimmy Redhead and Dick Callan
• Line-up 1982-1985: Graham Fenton, Dick Callan, Jimmy Redhead, Gordon Scott and Brian Hodgson
• Line-up 1985-198?: Graham Fenton, Dick Callan, Jimmy Redhead, Brian Hodgson and Gerry Hogan
• Line-up 1995-2011: Graham Fenton, Steve Bloomfield, Jimmy Redhead, Gordon Scott and Fred Poke

Albums

• 1976 - Riders in the Sky
• 1978 - Settin' the Woods on Fire
• 1979 - Rockabilly Rebel (aka Matchbox) - UK
  UK Albums Chart
  The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
  
   #44
• 1980 - Midnite Dynamos - UK #23
• 1981 - Flying Colours
• 1982 - Crossed Line
• 1985 - Going Down Town
• 1998 - Comin' Home
• 2010 - Live in Bristol 1978

Chart singles

• "Rockabilly Rebel" (1979) - UK
  UK Singles Chart
  The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
  
  #18
• "Buzz Buzz a Diddle It" (1980) - UK #22
• "Midnite Dynamos" (1980) - UK #14
• "When You Ask About Love" (1980) - UK #4
• "Over The Rainbow - You Belong to Me (medley)" (1980) - UK #15
• "Babes in the Wood" (1981) - UK #46
• "Love's Made a Fool of You" (1981) - UK #63
• "One More Saturday Night" (1982) - UK 63