Mat Walklate is a musician, singer, songwriter and composer who has built parallel careers in blues and Irish traditional music over more than three decades. Best known as a harmonica player, he also plays flute, tin whistle and uilleann pipes, with his work encompassing live performance, recording, composition and teaching.
Mat left Staffordshire to make Manchester his home in his late teens, and it was there that his professional musical life began to take shape. His involvement in both blues and Irish traditional music was there from the start: he won the British Blues Harmonica Championship in 1992 and the All-Britain Fleadh Cheoil on harmonica the following year. He went on to tour extensively, with performances in the UK and across Europe forming a regular part of his work over the following three decades.
These two parallel strands have remained central to his career. In Irish traditional music he has recorded and performed extensively with The House Devils, alongside solo and collaborative recordings exploring traditional music on harmonica and flute. His blues work has included projects and performances with Paolo Fuschi, Tom Attah, Alex Haynes and guitarist James Lawley, as well as his own recordings.
Since 2019 Mat has worked closely with singer and guitarist Alex Haynes, releasing two independent EPs and developing an expanding repertoire of original material through live performance and recording. Along with guitarist James Lawley, Mat and Alex also formed the blues band Cryin’ Shame in late 2025.
In addition to performing, Mat has written music for television, theatre and film, as well as composing production music and releasing or contributing to recordings spanning blues, folk, Americana, ska and reggae.
Teaching has formed another substantial part of his career. Mat is a Lecturer in Folk at Leeds Conservatoire, where he teaches harmonica, and has run harmonica workshops at The Met in Bury for many years alongside private tuition and wider adult and community music education. In 2026 he presented A History of Blues Harmonica 1920s–1960s at The Met, tracing the instrument from pre-war players through the development of amplified post-war blues harmonica.
His standing as a harmonica player is also reflected in his long-running endorsement by C.A. Seydel Söhne Harmonicas. Blues and Irish traditional music have remained distinct but equally important strands of Mat’s career, each pursued on its own terms and each shaping his musical life from the beginning.
