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Music, Mud, and Matt
Written By: Marlene Osteen | Issue: August 2024
Matt Rogers brings his heartfelt brand of musical storytelling to the Thursday, August 15, Orchard Session at Old Edwards. For updates and to book online, visit OldEdwardsHospitality.com/OrchardSessions.
Matt Rogers
Matt Rogers, a country musician, and serenading heartthrob, with 15 songwriting awards to his credit will be crooning to audiences at The Orchard Sessions at Old Edwards on Thursday, August 15.
Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Rogers got his first taste of music singing in church and playing with youth praise bands. He dabbled in various other genres, trying to find his voice in the industry, before finding his way to country and Nashville.
“I had an affinity for guitar, so I wanted to play solos and rock out all the time,” Rogers says of his early years. “I had a garage band through high school where we played rock music. I started writing songs in college, playing covers for free wings and beer.”
Though he was working in the medical field after college he put together a band, started performing locally and eventually playing gigs further out. It was then that he began traveling to Nashville and taking meetings, slowly coming to the realization that if he intended to pursue music full time he had to move.
Although he now calls Tennessee home, Rogers still finds inspiration from his Georgia upbringing for the music he writes.
“The music that I grew up on that still lives in the Muddy Banks going through Macon, Georgia,” Rogers continues. “You just start writing about your life and your experiences and it takes you to where you end up. I don’t try to border myself with genres, but it’s country to the bone.”
All this autobiographical drama spills off onstage.
“When people hear my music, I want them to be able to relate to it. My songs are inspired by real life. I write about what I know.” They are told, as one critic put it, in a voice, “invigorated with rawness and authenticity.” Indeed, his idiosyncratic sound – rowdy and gritty with a gravelly voice and toe tapping lyrics – is as he describes it, “commercial without compromise.”
He loves playing in front of live audiences. “Their energy becomes my energy, and the connection with them is authentic. It’s inspiring to see fans consume a song and watch their reaction to it. They are the fuel.”
Show begin each evening at 6:00 P.M. and finish at 8:00 P.M. – perhaps just in time for a showing of nature’s own Klieg light, the rising of the moon.
Admission is $25 for Old Edwards Inn and Half-Mile Farm Hotel Guests and Members, and general admission is $40 and includes light bites and a cash bar.
The session will move indoors to the new Orchard House in the event of rain.
