EAGLES NEST— Better late than never is an old adage that could certainly apply to longtime musician Rob Mattson, whose first original musical release is set to download Friday, Dec. 29.
“Kinda Pretty Good (Ain’t Too Bad)” is a country song that harkens back to the Bakersfield sound made famous by the likes of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard as it relates how our everyday conversations often hide our true feelings.
It’s a return to roots for Mattson, who grew up in Ely in a musical family that performed gospel and country music in local churches and other venues as early as the 1960s.
The youngest of seven kids, Mattson remembers music as a family affair. His father and his brother Donny both played guitar while his sisters played keyboard and they all sang together. “We played music everyday,” he said. “That’s how it started. We all sang together and learned to do harmony.”
His parents belonged to a non-denominational church, which meant they had an open door to churches all across the region and they got to travel some as they performed.
Mattson’s family moved to Eagles Nest Township when he was young and he attended school in Tower. “I was into sports, art, cars, and guitars and my parents made room for all that,” he said.
“I was given my first guitar at five or six,” Mattson recalls, and he’s never really put it down although he remembers his early struggles learning to play chords quickly. He got a few pointers from his brother Donny who went on to play bass guitar for country great Marvin Rainwater. “He told me not to worry about the speed of my chord changes, but just to make them sound good. He said the speed would eventually come.”
He had hopes of following his brother into a musical career, but when he told his father of his plans, his father told him to have a vocation to fall back on. He followed that advice and earned a doctorate in chiropractic medicine, which became his livelihood even as he continued to dabble in music.
While he was born and raised in the North Country, he did leave the area for a while when a colleague offered him a position at his clinic in Willmar. After several years of schooling and early career-building, it had been some time since Mattson had the opportunity to perform publicly. He eventually connected with a local band in the Willmar area, named Fresh Fire, which played a repertoire of praise and gospel tunes and performed at the Sunshine Festival, an annual event that used to draw thousands. “I built some good relationships down there,” Mattson said.
He returned to the Ely area in 1995, where he established his own Ely Chiropractic Clinic on Chapman Street, where he continues to serve patients.
He recently retired from two other part-time gigs, as a firefighter with the Eagles Nest department and as the long-time traveling sports doc with the Ely basketball team, to free up more time to pursue his music. While his various pursuits kept him busy, he still found time to perform locally. He played for more than ten years with The Boundary Waters Boys and has, more recently, been playing solo gigs in the area. In fact, he’s scheduled to perform at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 24, at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Soudan, as part of the church’s candlelight Christmas Eve service.
While “Kinda Pretty Good (Ain’t Too Bad)” is his first original release, Mattson said he’s got many more teed up and ready to hit the digital “air” waves after this initial debut. While he’s musically talented, he said he’s needed help from more internet savvy people to handle the technical side of today’s music business. “It took me a while to figure out how to get my music out,” he said.
“Matthew Larson, from Ely, has helped on the technical side. So now, once I get that figured out, I have 25 more tunes coming down the line.”
His songs will run a gamut as wide as his musical interest, which spans everything from gospel to rock and roll to heavy metal. His likely next song up, tentatively titled, “Hey, You Going My Way?” will have an early “sock hop” feel he said. “I really enjoy that style… there were some great melodies back then. I think if you write a good melody, people will gravitate toward it. I want to put out a good product that sounds good. I’m not quitting my day job but I want to get these songs off my hard drive.”
He’s since registered with BMI as a songwriter and producer and has his website, robmattsonmusic.com up, and running. The website has a catchy minute-long segment of his pending release available for anyone wanting to get a taste ahead of the official Dec. 29 release as well as a pre-save and follow link to Spotify which will automatically download the song to phones upon its release on Spotify.
“A lot of pre-saves will help generate more interest in the song,” said Mattson.