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Meet the Music Man.
Editor\u2019s Note: In 2020, when I worked for the New Bern Sun Journal, I sat down with Howard Matthews for a long interview, and wrote this story for the Sun Journal, covering some of his earlier days, and of the love and joy he has shared right through 2025.
Howard passed away today, December 12, 2025. He was a good friend of mine, a unique street musician who was beloved by just about everyone he met as he strummed his guitar and sang his tunes in front of Baker\u2019s Kitchen. He was a treasure to the city.
New Bern is a city of street performers and intimate bands, from bluegrass and pop to Elizabethan strains of “Greensleeves\u201d backed up by a recorder and a lute. When it comes to a performance personality \u2013 to a unique style and effervescent charm \u2013 perhaps Howard Matthews stands above them all.
Meet the Music Man.<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019s a humble guy, our man Howard, regularly riding three miles on a flag-festooned vehicle that, Kafka-like, appears to have gone to bed as a grocery cart and awakened to find itself a three-wheeled bike. He takes his customary seat on a bench beside Baker\u2019s Kitchen on Middle Street, pulls a guitar whose strings curl and frizz from its tuning pegs and lets the music roll out.<\/span>
\n\t\t<\/p>\n But it\u2019s his personality and his love of the people he entertains that really makes him stand out: no one is a stranger to Howard, who has been known to sing even to dogs, and is often caught inviting children to strum the guitar while he forms the chords, encouraging them to sing along.
We interviewed Howard in his small, two room apartment where one room serves as a bedroom\/living room\/kitchen and the other is his music studio. A Beatles poster is prominent on one wall, complemented by photos of relatives and an old television is playing a stream of Star Wars movies. He lives the life of a night owl sleeping late and spending the wee hours hunched over his keyboards or strumming his guitar or his bass, practicing old songs and creating new.
“At night it\u2019s quiet,\u201d he said. “I can play all night and not be disturbed.\u201d
He quickly draws you into his stories. You\u2019re not just hearing a tale; you\u2019re going with him as he travels about, starting young and growing old and never regretting a minute. Soon you\u2019re riding along, forgetting even to take notes \u2013 not the brightest thing when you\u2019re writing a story.
Howard grew up with music. “Starting off as a kid I got one of these little brown organs and I learned to play \u2018Hang On Sloopy\u2019 on the keys,\u201d he said. “My sisters \u2013 we had a little youth choir and they didn\u2019t have a musician, and asked me if I could play for them. I said I could, but I could only play in the key of C.\u201d
He grew up in Riverdale, near James City. “My Mom and them would go and meet and laugh and joke at the tables on Wednesday night. They would send me and the other boys to another room.\u201d In that room the boys would gather with their instruments. It was here he saw his first guitar. He was so excited that the next day his father bought him his own.
Howard remembers William “Pap\u201d Suggs. “I would go over to his house and he would begin playing,\u201d he said. “He always let me in.\u201d Howard brought his guitar along and strummed some notes. “He would look over his eyeglasses and say, \u2018You can\u2019t play guitar, boy!\u2019\u201d And so Pap taught him to play.
It wasn\u2019t long before Howard and “the boys\u201d formed their own group, the Super Sonics of Soul. “We wrote our first song, we called it \u2018Wipe Out\u2019\u2026 we were, like, 13.\u201d
His band played at the community center and did well enough that, sometime in the mid \u201870s, when Governor James Holshouser landed at the county airport for a visit, they were invited to play. “We played \u2018Shaft\u2019 when he got off the airplane. It went over well.\u201d
He remembers local night clubs where big names like the Coasters and Otis Redding played. He was too young to go in, “but around the side they had a big fan, and I could look through and see.\u201d
Over time he would play in a number of bands \u2013 the early ones playing nothing but guitars \u2013 “We didn\u2019t know anything about a bass guitar.\u201d Howard learned, though, and soon it was his primary instrument.
He met Donald Brimmer (“He was doing James Brown imitations. He was pretty good at it\u201d) and started playing bass with him. It felt good.
Hearing him list off the people he played with, the bands he himself performed in, makes one wonder how, even at his age, he\u2019s had time to do it all. For a time he played bass and keyboard with the Soul Persuaders, who were based in Charlotte, and traveled the circuit with them. After a gig at DC he settled down where he had family and continued playing and meeting famous singers.
“I was playing with a reggae group from DC called Premier International,\u201d he said. Then his five-year-old daughter came from Texas to live with him. “I didn\u2019t want to raise her there,\u201d he said, “So I came home around \u201984. Got a job with Jones and Potts Music Company, located where Baker\u2019s Kitchen is now.\u201d
Along with other styles, Howard has done a lot of gospel \u2013 gospel bands, playing keyboard in churches. One of his breaks, locally, came when Rev. Curtis Brown \u2013 the guy who drives around preaching through a loudspeaker in his Jesus car \u2013 played some of his music on his radio show.
He\u2019s also played at Carnegie Hall.
At that time he was with the Soul Seekers. “One of the guys met a gentleman and his wife from up north. They got talking and told them how we played. They were showcasing family-oriented groups at Carnegie that week… So we played up there. We went up there Friday and we sung that Saturday night. Being a little country boy that has played in every hicktown in the woods, to play at Carnegie was something big.
“I had performed to 300, 400 people, but 9,000 people! When you get on stage and all you can hear is this\u2014(and here he begins to applaud) \u2013 you get butterflies!\u201d
He began street playing after his parents died, sitting on a bench across the street from the old diner in the Elks Building on Pollock and Middle streets. Eventually he moved to Baker\u2019s Kitchen where his memories of music at Jones and Potts are as warm as the breakfast Danish being served inside.
He prefers playing without a band, he said: it\u2019s more free. No contracts, no sticking absolutely to styles and playlists, no drunks late in the gig who come up and enjoy you more because they\u2019re three sheets to the wind than the fact that you\u2019re simply that good.
He can keep his own schedule, too: some days he and his Fender and that tricycle will hit the streets two or three times a week; other days he\u2019ll spend more time working out music at home.
He plays his own music \u2013 much of it is a kind of funky country rock \u2013 and old standbys from Otis Redding\u2019s “Dock of the Bay\u201d to Beatles and Eagles and James Taylor \u2013 and “I put my own spin to it,\u201d he says. He doesn\u2019t play blues very much \u2013 “You got to feel sad to play blues.\u201d
Often he throws in lyrics of his own.
One example is the Rolling Stones\u2019 “You Con\u2019t Always Get What You Want.\u201d His own additions? “You already got what you need.\u201d It\u2019s a verse that he was inspired to add after he lost his own home in Hurricane Florence and he watched the city coming together in the aftermath.
“So many people come through the storm asking, what do you need?\u201d he said. “That\u2019s when I wrote, \u2018You already got what you need,\u2019 because after the storm I see people walking and holding hands and kids laughing. You got your health, you got your friends, you got your family.\u201d
With COVID-19 closing up many churches Howard has lost a lot of income. His retirement money just covers rent, and he\u2019s living off the generosity of his fans who leave him dollars and sometimes gifts of food or other things. Recently, someone donated an air conditioner to replace the broken one in his apartment; Baker\u2019s Kitchen is accepting donations to help him as well.
Among his sponsors? Musician Joey Parker who gave him a blue Oscar Smith guitar — matching the one the lifesize Elvis statue holds a few doors down from Baker\u2019s. “I\u2019ve been playing my whole life,\u201d Parker said. “I have a lot of guitars in my home. I feel blessed.\u201d And, after seeing a Facebook photo of Howard, “I thought that man could use a new guitar,\u201d and gave him one of his own.
As he plays, Howard chats with passers-by and sometimes brings them into his show. Everyone seems to know him and his big smile.
You don\u2019t listen to Howard to become one with your depression or funk. It can\u2019t be done.
You don\u2019t always get what you want, but you got what you need.
“That\u2019s what I want to project,\u201d he said. “Live life.\u201d
\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source newbernlive.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Meet the Music Man.
Editor\u2019s Note: In 2020, when I worked for the New Bern Sun Journal, I sat down with Howard Matthews for a long interview, and wrote this story for the Sun Journal, covering some of his earlier days, and of the love and joy he has shared right through 2025.
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