As I ease back into my New Mexico life after three months away, it’s with great sorrow and deep gratitude that I acknowledge and appreciate the life of KUNM Radio music director, Matthew Finch, who passed away last Sunday.
When I arrived in Albuquerque ten years ago, I was a new songwriter, eager to form connections and deepen my craft. When I released my first album (Three Roses), Matthew was one of the first attentive listeners to give it full attention and respond in kind. He invited me into KUNM for an interview and for a live recording session (my first!), and he asked exquisite, attention and inquisitive questions. As a fellow dog-lover, he especially loved the song “Me, my dog, and my guitar;” there were many Saturday evenings where I would tune into “Ear to the Ground” and hear that song! The consummate professional, some of his questions are ones I still ponder, and all of them were based on a close listen to the album, the stories behind the songs, and the experiences that had fed the songs. He was deeply curious, and he brought that into the interview room. This initial interview was a lifeline, a buoy, and a strong encouragement to continue writing and performing. And so I did.
Matthew attended and enthusiastically promoted my debut performance with my feminist honky tonk band, The Merlettes, at Outpost Performance Space, a sold out show with two-stepping on the dance floor which was truly a celebration of life and resilience on many, many fronts; he attended the first house concert I held, together with Sage Harrington and Meredith Wilder, at my home in the South Valley; he continued to generously feature my new albums and projects on air, included as a solo act, with The Merlettes and with my duo Heartstrings, and most recently had done a feature on my international, anthropologically-informed songwriting retreats in Sardinia and Spain with Sing Me Back Home Retreats to spread the word here in New Mexico. To the end, he remained curious, engaged and incredibly open to the many directions my life was going in.
Four albums and three international tours later, I can see and feel the effect of that one, deep first listen on Matthew’s part, and how it affected my craft and confidence as a songwriter. As an artist, I have learned that having just 2-3 people in your corner, people who really feel, “get” and support your music, can make the difference between continuing to write and perform, and throwing in the towel and relegating your songs to your “griefbag” of unfinished projects, as the songwriter Brett Perkins has so elegantly referred to it. Matthew was one of those people, for me.
Over the years, Matthew and I expanded our collaborations into my classroom at UNM. This included multiple recording sessions with the UNM HonkyTonk Ensemble for his show “Ear to the Ground” and featured sessions with the UNM Songwriting program, including one show he worked on with songwriter and musician Marshall J Broyles while Marshall was interning at KUNM. In each of these shows, he took the same time, attention and care with my students and their songs as he had with my own songs.
As I’ve read the posts from musicians across the state and country acknowledging his role in their lives, what I’m struck by is the way each of us felt the unconditional nature of his support for our creative process and the value of our original music. This is tremendous! Matthew made each musician he came into contact with, including my students, feel valuable, worthy and worth his–and therefore others'–time and care. He also allowed each of us to be and feel like an artist worthy of respect and close listening. What a gift, and what a thing to model for all of us as musicians, current and future educators and fellow humans, moving forward.
In this way, he set the bar incredibly high, and I for one was and am inspired by his inclusive and discerning approach to artist engagement not only as the Music Director for an NPR-affiliate, but as someone holding space and therefore acting as a public gathering point for artmaking in our state in these troubled and divisive times.
We should all be so lucky to have a “Matthew” in our corner. Someone, as the recent KUNM piece by Nash Jones so nicely stated it, with “big ears.” To that I would add, someone with both big ears and a big heart. Thank you for all the beautiful listening and all the exquisite music, Matthew.
Photo by Barbara Ramirez/Generation Justice 2022.
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