Cerys Matthews

Cerys Matthews (born 11 April 1969) is a Welsh singer, songwriter, author, and broadcaster.

She was a founding member of Welsh rock band Catatonia and a leading figure in the "Cool Cymru" movement of the late 1990s.

Matthews programmes and hosts a weekly music show on BBC Radio 6 Music, a weekly blues show on BBC Radio 2, and a weekly show on BBC Radio 4, Add To Playlist, which won the Prix Italia and Prix Europa 2022.

She also makes documentaries for television and radio and was a roving reporter for The One Show.

Catatonia were formed in 1992, after Matthews met Mark Roberts.

She subsequently sang lead vocals on, and co-wrote the music and lyrics for, the band's hits.

Songs she co-wrote included "You've Got a Lot to Answer For", "Mulder and Scully", "Dead from the Waist Down", and "Road Rage".

Matthews also played guitar on the earlier material before second guitarist Owen Powell joined the band.

She also performed a single with the band Space named "The Ballad of Tom Jones", which tells the story of two lovers who want to kill each other, but then hear a Tom Jones song that defuses their homicidal feelings.

Matthews later collaborated with Jones to record a version of Frank Loesser's "Baby, It's Cold Outside" on Jones's 1999 album Reload.

Matthews was voted the "Sexiest Female in Rock" in a 1999 readers' poll in the now-defunct magazine Melody Maker.

Matthews joined the Pet Shop Boys on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury in June 2000, performing a duet of their hit "What Have I Done to Deserve This?".

After Catatonia's rise to fame with their second album International Velvet, and subsequent success with Equally Cursed and Blessed, the band returned in 2001 with their fourth studio album, Paper Scissors Stone.

In September 2001, the band officially split.

In December 2001, she returned to the recording studio for the first time since Catatonia split up.

She recorded a song in both English and Welsh for the pre-school cartoon series Sali Mali.

She provided guest vocals on the track "Cyclops Rock", from US alternative rock band They Might Be Giants 2001 album Mink Car.

Her line was originally supposed to be provided by Joe Strummer of the Clash.

Matthews moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2001.

On her arrival she began playing with Bucky Baxter, who had played lap steel guitar for Bob Dylan and Ryan Adams.

She had already collected 76 traditional folk songs with the idea of making an album of folk covers.

Her debut album, Cockahoop, ended up consisting mainly of her own songs.

Cerys went on to co-write "Gypsy Song" with Strummer on her Cockahoop album released by Rough Trade in 2003.

It was recorded in seven months and appeared on Blanco y Negro Records in the United Kingdom in May 2003.

While recording this album she met Seth Riddle, whom she married in Pembrokeshire on 22 February 2003.

She toured the album around Britain with minimal promotion as she was several months pregnant at the time.

The album's Stateside Records release followed in October 2004.

In December 2005, Matthews recorded a version of Len Barry's 1960s UK and US top-10 hit "1-2-3" in Nashville.

She released it as a download-single with all profits going to a children's charity.

She founded "The Good Life Experience", a festival of culture and the great outdoors in Flintshire in 2014, and is author of Hook, Line and Singer, published by Penguin Books, and children's stories Tales from the Deep and Gelert, A Man's Best Friend, published by Gomer.

Her illustrated version of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood was published in November 2022, by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Matthews was born in Cardiff, the second of four children.

The family moved to Swansea when she was seven.

She went to Bryn Y Mor Welsh language school until 11 years of age, then attended St Michael's School, Llanelli.

She then attended Ysgol Bro Gwaun comprehensive school when she lived in the Pembrokeshire village of Trefin, and Bryanston School, an independent school in Dorset, England.

Matthews is fluent in English, Welsh, Spanish, and French.

She has cited her childhood heroes as being Pippi Longstocking and writers William Butler Yeats and Dylan Thomas.

She learned to play the guitar at the age of nine, sang Welsh folk songs and taught herself traditional songs from all over the globe including blues and Irish folk songs.

She was a member of the West Glamorgan Youth Orchestra.

She had a stint in Spain as a nanny, where she learned to speak Catalan.