Meet musicians Matt Heckler and Benjamin Tod.
They pursue their own creative ventures, but together they’re a force.
Recently they were captured playing a tune by GemsOnVHS, an “ongoing archive/collection of folk music that focuses on acoustic, unplugged, and off-stage performance videos by a variety of musicians.”
The collective uploaded their soulful bluegrass tune, entitled “Blue Eyes Dancing” to their YouTube channel where it has stunned and touched the hearts of close to two million viewers.
According to Matt Heckler’s biography, he’s “the fiddle player you want to believe still exists” with music that is “definitively unsafe and entirely his own.”
This fierce fiddle player grew up in the Catskills and made his home in the Carolina Appalachians. He’s well known for his part in the band Deep Chatham but has enjoyed solo work since then.
Songwriter Benjamin Tod was born and raised in Sumner County, Tennessee. He began his musical career at a young age, and was street performing in Nashville by age 13. He is well known for his efforts in the Lost Dog Street Band, a band consisting of his wife and their yellow lab, Daisy. But Tod also delivers his overwhelming heart and soul in his powerful solo work, which he is currently hard at work on creating and sharing.
The fierce fiddler and guitarist were captured together delivering a moving tune on a historical porch.
Their video, which has gained the traction of 23,000 likes, shows the duo pouring out their hearts in the woods.
According to GemsOnVHS:
“In a very special edition here, we find Matt Heckler (formerly of Deep Chatham) teaming up with Benjamin Tod (of Lost Dog street band) to play a tune of Matt’s on the porch. Not just any porch, however. This is the house where Guy Clark used to live, and later Townes Van Zandt. Some parts of Heartworn Highways were filmed here. Benjamin is friends with Townes daughter, and filming on that porch just felt dang right.”
Amid the peace of the surrounding forest, Heckler and Tod preface their song with a little history.
The two discovered one another in a sandwich shop, where they fell in love with one another’s music and began emailing ideas back and forth. And after hearing them drive this powerful tune home, their union is unmistakable and righteous in every way.
In the glow of the setting sun, this iconic pair lights the porch on fire. Heckler’s fiddle-playing is most notable, as he rings the notes out nimbly and quickly.
GemsOnVHS goes on to mention:
“Matt himself is one of those artists who can hold an entire room with a solo performance. His voice reaches and booms, and his fiddle playing accompanies that voice perfectly fine. The way he holds his fiddle is also of interest – what some may call the “incorrect” or unorthodox way. Doing things really well the wrong way is something we encourage here, for sure, and old time has a long tradition of it.”
The intimate performance was well-received by fans across the internet, proclaiming it ‘real music’, and pointing out that the world needs more of this kind of music right now.
Ready to hear it for yourself? Check it out in the video below!
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