After years of recording with some of Nashville’s most respected session musicians, Matt North looked homeward. For Savoy, due September 15, North traded an all-star roster of players associated with Lucinda Williams, Elvis Costello, John Fogerty, and Emmylou Harris for something far more personal: an album created entirely in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Every aspect of the record—from the musicians and engineers to the artwork and design—draws from the Champaign-Urbana community he considers the “Muscle Shoals of the Midwest.”
“I basically took a break from my beloved band of Nashville hot shots to put a band together of guys from my old high school just for this one record of all Champaign-Urbana talent,” North says. Hometown spirit is front and center in North’s new video for “Midwest Woman,” premiering today with American Blues Scene.
Set inside a nostalgic roller rink and filmed throughout Champaign-Urbana in a parade of vintage automobiles—including a 1968 Camaro Convertible, a 1967 Mercury Cougar, and a rare 1961 Jewel Blue Convertible Corvette—the video serves as both a love letter to the Midwest and a celebration of the people who continue to make the city’s creative community thrive. The song itself follows a similar trajectory to the video: “Midwest Woman” begins with a hazy, cinematic ease before bursting open into a guitar-driven rocker.
North filled the video with familiar faces and longtime friends. Style & Grace Salon owner Tracy McIntosh-Brucks—North’s fifth-grade couples-skate partner at Skateland—appears as the mysterious Rollergirl. Local muralist Leslie Kimble is featured alongside several of her Central Illinois works, while yoga and Pilates coach Lisa Staples, a former Centennial High School marching band classmate, appears teaching goat yoga at Pure Fruits Farm and Creamery.
North’s wife, veteran film and television actor Laurel Green, makes an appearance as the “West Coast Girl,” while his 1988 prom date, Angie O’Neill Washburn, joins him in a playful nod to Bob Dylan’s iconic “Subterranean Homesick Blues” video. Rounding out the cast are Moon Seven Times vocalist Lynn Canfield as the “East Coast Girl,” licensed professional counselor Jill Mercer in a cheerleader uniform she enthusiastically claimed after hearing the song, and 97-year-old Mary Stallmeyer riding shotgun in the rare Corvette.
The album follows North’s acclaimed releases Bullies in the Backyard (2022) and Above Ground Fools (2017), but marks a deliberate shift in approach. Savoy features performances from longtime collaborators and veteran musicians including Kent Whitesell, Lynn Canfield, Mitch Marlow, Paul Chastain, Jesse Brown, Ryan Groff, and others, with James Treichler handling mixing and mastering at Wave Upon Wave Studio.
