A short biography of Matt Dusk from FOX's "The Casino": As trends in popular music arrive and disappear at an ever-increasing speed, the reputations of classic performers from a previous generation like Tony Bennett or Ella Fitzgerald keep growing in stature.

Reality Reel Media
07.12.04

It will always be a daunting challenge for a young artist to try to rival the achievements of these icons of song, but 24-year-old Matt Dusk has the ambition, the technique and the chutzpah to give it a try.

"You learn from listening all the time," says Toronto-born Matt. "It's a teacher-and-apprentice situation, the teachers being the old greats. Then there comes a point where you can only copy them so much, and you start to put your own stuff into it."

His debut album for Decca was recorded in Miami, Toronto and Abbey Road studios in London, where a 42-piece string section from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra added luxuriant textures reminiscent of the heyday of the big-band balladeers.

The album finds Dusk tackling The Beatles' ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘Two Shots’, a song which was written by Bono for Frank Sinatra, alongside a batch of his own songs and new material by other writers specially commissioned for the project.

"I don't just want to do cover versions," Matt insists. "If you do that, it's too easy to get thrown into the 'clone' category. I've got four or five of my own songs on the record, but I've probably thrown out about another 30 - songwriting is always like that. But I'll tell you honestly, the one problem I had with this project was that we had so many songs to choose from that the selection process was painful. You're saying 'I love this song, but does it work with the album and is it better than that song?' In the end you have to leave off good songs. But look on the bright side - there's always the next album."

When The Beatles recorded ‘Please Please Me’ in 1962, they played it in a hectic, uptempo arrangement. Matt's version is slow, languid and introspective, prompting the listener to make a complete reassessment of its content.

"Yeah, for me it gives it a whole new meaning," he says. "The original was just a very happy-go-lucky song - it's great, I love it, I really enjoyed the romantic sentiment of it. Mine is more pensive and reflective, where the Beatles version is very in your face. I'm not saying it’s right or wrong, it's just a different way of doing it."

He was drawn to record Bono's song, ‘Two Shots’, both because of the song itself and because of the poignant story behind it.