Matty Croxton is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and entertainer based in Fort Payne, Alabama. Deeply influenced by the “baby-boomer” generation of music, he brings a nostalgic flair to his high-energy performances.
Although originally from Southwest Florida, he has been an Alabamian since the age of seven. His family relocated to DeKalb County after falling in love with the area while attending the annual June Jam music festival hosted by the band, Alabama, in the 1980s.
He grew up in a house filled with music. “As a kid, I always had a keyboard or something musical to play around with. Mom was always playing the piano, or jamming to her old records from her younger days, and my older brothers were rocking out to the tunes of their time. Many of those songs were what I learned to play when my oldest brother gifted me his bass guitar at age 11. Dad brought me home a 6-string acoustic a few years later, and I learned my chords from Mom’s Beatles piano book. Of course I learned the new stuff on the radio, but there was just something about the older music that really got me hooked on playing. “
He joined the marching band his junior year of high-school, but didn’t actually march. “My band director knew I played the bass, and asked if I would help make up for the lack of low-brass instruments. I obliged and rigged up an amp with a car battery, and a power inverter on a hand-truck and played on the sidelines! We had at most probably thirty members in the band. We were pitifully small, but damn we sure tried. Those are some of my best memories. My first real experience on-stage was performing Alabama’s “Dixieland Delight” at my high school talent show that same year. I was scared to death, but also so excited to get a taste of the spotlight. I won second place. Ha, if only I’d been on the football team…” He graduated in 2005 and decided not to take the college route. He already knew what he wanted to do.
In early 2010, after five years of trying to write and gig while restoring cars with his brother, and selling auto parts full-time, he left his his day job and decided to make music his main focus. Being heavily inspired by the folk-rock/newgrass movement at the time, and collaborating with the “right group of guys”, his main band, Pioneer Chicken Stand, was formed a month later. Within a year he moved to Ellijay, Georgia to focus on writing with other members of the band, and became established there.
Although he had made a whole new group of friends and fans, he decided to leave Ellijay, and moved back to his hometown in 2015. “Right now, Fort Payne is a good place for me. It’s right smack in the middle between Nashville and Atlanta. I grew up here, my family is here, and I hold them very dear to me.” he says.
He has performed professionally around the Southeast as a solo performer, along with his bands, Pioneer Chicken Stand and Matty and the Matadors, including special bands as tribute to Elton John, The Eagles, and Alabama.
His 4-song original solo EP, Southern Discomfort, was recorded and released in 2016. Afterwards, a year-long tour followed with Trade Day Troubadours, a band with fellow singer/songwriters from his hometown, each promoting their new releases. He is currently touring, working on new music, and perpetually looking forward to the next project.
