A Nashville-based singer-songwriter known for blending social justice themes with country, Americana, folk, blues and bluegrass will kick off the West Coast leg of her tour with a stop inside a 100-seat hall built in 1886. Crys Matthews plays Templars Hall in Old Poway Park at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, September 11, marking her first time performing anywhere in Poway or the greater San Diego area.
The concert, organized by San Diego Folk Heritage, will feature entirely original music written by Matthews, including several songs from her recent album, Reclamation, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Matthews told the paper she is beginning her tour after spending the whole month in Europe. Released January 17, 2025, Reclamation confronts gun safety, bodily autonomy, racism and religious hypocrisy, and Matthews has called it the fullest sonic and ideological representation of herself as an artist and a human being, according to Americana UK.
Matthews describes herself as a preacher's kid, a Black woman, a butch lesbian and a proud Southerner, and she says her work is about reclaiming space denied to Black artists in country and Americana music, space denied to LGBTQ people in communities of faith, women's autonomy over their bodies, and the South that raised her, per the Union-Tribune's report. She has said her mission is to amplify unheard voices, illuminate the unseen, and remind people that hope and love lead to equity and justice.
A Career Built on Songs About Real Events
Matthews draws inspiration from real-world events for her social justice music, a practice that dates back to at least 2012, when the killing of Trayvon Martin affected her deeply because he reminded her of a younger cousin, the Union-Tribune reports. She started writing songs while studying at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, where she once planned to become a high school band director and won first place in a campus talent show. She started performing in 2007 and has performed full time since 2017, the year she won the grand prize at the 16th annual NewSong Music Performance & Songwriting Competition at Lincoln Center in New York, a victory that came with a recording session at Echo Mountain Recording Studios and a showcase performance at the Sundance ASCAP Music Cafe, according to NewSong Music.
That same year, Matthews delivered a TEDx Talk titled “Sing, Don't Shout—An Alternative Approach” at TEDxHerndon, describing how music can foster difficult conversations, according to a recording posted by TEDx Talks. As the daughter of an A.M.E. preacher in the South, she frequently draws on her own lived experience in both her talks and her songs. Her songwriting has also served a more personal purpose: the Union-Tribune reports she has used it to heal from a breakup with her girlfriend.
Awards Recognize Her Social Justice Songwriting
Matthews' song “Changemakers” won a 2022 Song of the Year honor from the International Folk Music Association, according to Cruces Creatives. Folk Alliance International went further last year, naming Matthews its 2024 Artist of the Year at the International Folk Music Awards, an honor recognizing leadership and artistic excellence within the global folk music community, per the Unitarian Universalist Church of Brunswick. Matthews has named Pete Seeger and Holly Near among the artists who inspired her own social justice music, and her live sets sometimes echo the style of Woody Guthrie's “Deportee,” the Union-Tribune notes.
Idiosyncratic Instruments and a Backwards Guitar
Concertgoers can expect a few unusual sights onstage. Matthews taught herself to play guitar by watching videos, and because she is left-handed but learned on a right-handed instrument, she plays it upside down and backwards, according to the Union-Tribune's report. She sometimes supplements her guitar with a suitcase drum that provides percussion, guitar backing and a beat for clapping along. She played clarinet growing up, long before picking up the guitar that would define her career.
Matthews has said her music helps people have conversations about deeply personal issues, and the Union-Tribune reports that concert attendees often discuss afterward how her songs touched them. Her ability to turn difficult topics into shared conversation is, by her own account, the whole point.
A Historic 100-Seat Hall in Old Poway Park
Whoever shows up Friday will be packed into a genuinely small room. Templars Hall carries an official maximum capacity of just 100 attendees, according to City of Poway booking records. Built in 1886, it was Poway's first assembly hall, originally constructed for the International Order of Good Templars before later being moved to Old Poway Park, per a video shared by the City of Poway. Retired Army Col. John S. Porter bought the property in 1948 for a western-themed park with a steam railroad, and the city acquired the land from his estate or family in 1986. According to a Poway.org document, one of the primary motives for Poway's incorporation in 1980 was retaining the country lifestyle known to generations.
The concert is presented by San Diego Folk Heritage, an all-volunteer nonprofit that stages acoustic concerts and folk-arts programming. The historic San Diego Folk Festival was founded by local record store owner Lou Curtiss. According to the County of San Diego's Fiscal Year 2024-25 Community Enhancement Program grant history, public funding can support the preservation and promotion of folk arts, music education and community events. The concert will take place at Templars Hall.
Tickets and Details
Tickets for Friday's show run $20 for San Diego Folk Heritage members and $25 for general admission, with free entry for youths 17 and under. Tickets are available in advance at TicketWeb.com or at the door. Templars Hall is located at 14134 Midland Road in Old Poway Park, and the show is set to start at 7:30 p.m.
