Who was the man that Ashford Pub called on to fill a boring Sunday afternoon with music? Why, it was Knoxville, TN’s very own Matt Woods.

I just recently got turned onto Matt Woods’ music and have really enjoyed the roadhouse-style country music of his album, The Manifesto of Matt Woods. It is an album filled with great tales and catchy songs, definitely worth checking out.

Recently, he released a 7” of his song, Deadman’s Blues, complete with a video, which is right below this review. If this new song is any indication of how his new album, to be released in the Spring, is going to sound, it should definitely be on your radar for must buy albums of 2014.

Sitting back with a pecan porter, watching the sunlight pour in from the open doors of the pub, feeling the cool breeze from the most beautiful day we’ve seen in Houston for a while and listening to Matt Woods do an admirable job of recreating these songs all himself was beyond enjoyable.

A lot of Woods’ songs rely on lead riffs to create the hook and somehow, Woods was able to keep the rhythm parts going while throwing enough of the leads into the songs to keep you from missing the rest of the band. If you do not play music, you will not know how hard that is, but believe me, that is not an easy thing to do.

Over a four hour afternoon of playing tunes, with a few breaks, of course, Woods covered all of his songs, including most of the songs from his upcoming album and even threw in a few choice covers. Over the afternoon, the audience grew and the everyone found themselves with their eyes glued to the stage.

If there are better ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, I could not tell you what they were. Check out Matt Woods when he inevitably rolls back through town in a few months. Let all these folks gallivanting around the country playing music know that you love what they do. Until next time…