Album Notes

If you came looking for melodic guitar rock, you came to the right place!

Heidelberg is a collection of rock guitar atmospheres. Songs range from the gothic rock anthem "Heidelberg," the old-school Latin rock of "Los Alamos," the surf-Western-metal sound of "The Horseman," to a new interpretation of an old classical guitar favorite, "Variations On Romanze." And it covers all the ground between -- the perfect collection of songs for the electric guitar.

J.C. Mathews has been inventing and reinventing his melodic rock guitar sound for more than 25 years. A native of Georgia, J.C.learned his first riffs by observing the Southern rock movement up close. He later studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and worked to fuse his blues-rock upbringing with the technical mastery of the jazz fusion world.

Now, years later, his playing shows the impact of a wildly divergent group of influences, from Al Dimeola, Carlos Santana and Ritchie Blackmore, to Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler and many, many others. Over the years, J.C. lent his unique blend of guitar worlds to dozens of artists. Now, his solo work reflects a philosophy which he sums up in one sentence: the sound of an electric guitar is a beautiful thing and deserves a melody.