Iain Matthews - Keep On Sailing: The Elektra Years 1972-1974 Iain Matthews
• 5CD box set retrospective
• Featuring expanded 2026 versions of his two albums 'Valley Hi' and 'Some Days You Eat The Bear…And Some Days The Bear Eats You' including rare and unreleased alternative versions, plus radio sessions and live recordings from the era
5CD box set retrospective from singer/songwriter Iain Matthews, completing the series of
releases covering his 1970s
Featuring expanded 2026 versions of his two albums made for Elektra Records, 1973’s Valley Hi and 1974’s Some Days You Eat The Bear…And Some Days The Bear Eats You including rare and unreleased alternative versions, plus radio sessions and live recordings from the era.
Still making albums and playing live to this day, Iain Matthews’ career spans some 60 years and can rightly be described as legendary. An original member of the folk rock band Fairport Convention from 1967 to 1969, he left to form his own band Matthews Southern Comfort, topping the UK charts in 1970 with a cover of Joni Mitchell's ‘Woodstock’. As well as recording solo albums for the Vertigo, Elektra, Columbia and Rockburgh labels in the 1970s, he was also a founder member of Plainsong* alongside guitarist and singer Andy Roberts.
This early 70s focussed set includes previously unreleased alternate takes of ‘Seven Bridges Road’ and ‘Old Man At The Mill’, plus a rare 1974 concert appearance with his band Another Fine Mess during his US East Coast tour that summer, recorded at Ultrasonic Studios in New York and broadcast at the time by the Long Island FM radio station, WLIR.
Also included are two newly-compiled albums of mostly unreleased live performances from Iain’s archives: 'Elektra Years Live 1973-2023' and 'With A Little Help From My Friends', along with four songs that were never released on any of his studio albums: 'Streets Of Baltimore', ‘Ann Eliza Jane', ‘Feel A Whole Lot Better’ and ‘Train Leaves Here This Morning’.
Track List
DISC ONE
1. Keep On Sailing
2. Old Man At The Mill
3. Shady Lies
4. These Days
5. Leaving Alone
6. Seven Bridges Road
7. Save Your Sorrows
8. What Are You Waiting For
9. Propinquity
10. Blue Blue Day
11. You Fell Through My Mind (B-side single)
12. Seven Bridges Road (Unreleased alternate vocal version)
13. Tried So Hard (Unreleased demo version)
14. Old Man At The Mill (Unreleased bluegrass version)
15. Leaving Alone (1992 Hamilton Pool demo)
16. Propinquity (1999 re-recording)
17. These Days (2017 re-recording)
18. Keep On Sailing (2019 B-side single)
DISC TWO
1. Ol’ 55
2. I Don’t Want To Talk About It
3. A Wailing Goodbye
4. Keep On Sailing
5. Tried So Hard
6. Dirty Work
7. Do I Still Figure In Your Life
8. Home
9. Biloxi
10. The Fault
11. Poor Ditching Boy (Rejected album track)
12. I Don’t Want To Talk About It (Live, Nottingham 1991)
13. A Wailing Goodbye (Live, Nottingham 1991)
14. Keep On Sailing (Live, Berlin 1990)
15. Poor Ditching Boy (Live, Berlin 1990)
DISC THREE
1. A Wailing Goodbye
2. Even The Guiding Light
3. Leaving Alone
4. True Story Of Amelia Earhart
5. Keep On Sailing
6. Call The Tune
7. Streets Of Baltimore
8. Dirty Work
9. Ann Eliza Jane
DISC FOUR
1. Blue Blue Day (Radio 1 Sounds On Sunday, 1973)
2. Save Your Sorrows (Radio 1 Sounds On Sunday, 1973)
3. Keep On Sailing (Live, Kalamazoo 1973)
4. Poor Ditching Boy (Live, Kalamazoo 1973)
5. Leaving Alone (Live, Kalamazoo 1973)
6. Diesel On My Tail (Live, Kalamazoo 1973)
7. These Days (Live, Brussels 1979)
8. Seven Bridges Road (Live, Los Angeles 1988)
9. Keep On Sailing (Live, Los Angeles 1988)
10. Louise (Live, Mayrhofen 1993)
11. I Don’t Want To Talk About It (Live, Zurich 2001)
12. Call The Tune (Live, Norderstedt 2012)
13. Even The Guiding Light (Live, Bergen op Zoom 2016)
14. Seven Bridges Road (Live, Pontefract 2022)
15. I Don’t Want To Talk About It (Live, Pontefract 2022)
16. These Days (Live, Camden 2023)
17. Old Man At The Mill (Live, Camden 2023)
DISC FIVE
1. Seven Bridges Road (Live, Winnipeg 1989)
2. A Wailing Goodbye (Live, Santa Monica 1990)
3. I Don’t Want To Talk About It (Live, Heilbronn 2001)
4. Poor Ditching Boy (Live, Tokyo 1991)
5. Keep On Sailing (Live, Thalgau 1996)
6. Old Man At The Mill (Live, Bethlehem 2019)
7. These Days (Live, Bethlehem 2019)
8. Even The Guiding Light (Live, Erlangen 1995)
9. Side Roads (Live, Pontefract 2022)
10. For The Second Time (2020 re-recording)
11. Call The Tune (Live, Ottersum 2008)
12. Louise (Live, Pontefract 2025)
13. Poor Ditching Boy (Live, Paris 2008)
14. Feel A Whole Lot Better (Ride The Times outtake 2009)
15. Silver Raven (Live, Pontefract 2016)
16. Train Leaves Here This Morning (Live, Osaka 1991)
17. Tried So Hard (Live, Osaka 1991)