kathy mattea

kathy mattea
Guest performances by
COAL
Patty Loveless, Marty Stuart, Tim and Mollie O’Brien
Grammy award winner and environmental activist Kathy Mattea
has explored music's most basic human essence - melodies
steeped in emotion, timeless narratives delivered with beauty by
an unmistakable voice. Known for such classic hits as "Eighteen
Wheels and A Dozen Roses," Kathy has always dreamed quietly
about one day recording an album like COAL.
Raised near Charleston, West Virginia, her childhood was
immersed in the Appalachian culture and her mining heritage is
thick; both her parents grew up in coal camps, her grandfathers
were miners, and her mother worked for the local UMWA. But the
songs on COAL are more than just mining songs. Kathy says she
wanted to pay tribute to "my place and my people."
“Mattea remains one of Nashville’s most spiritual singers...”
–Brian Mans?eld, USA TODAY
Track Listing
Kathy's cultural backdrop gave birth to songs that told the stories of the people who performed the labor, and whose families
were born and raised in the culture of the mine. From this life
experience, songs of love, sadness, faith and celebration emerged from front porches and churches and unfortunately, all
too often from funerals. The entire lives of families were tied to
the mine and their music is the story of Appalachia - a story of
tradition, family, honor and values. But this story transcends
those mountains into the many other mining regions throughout
the country, from the gold mines of California to the copper
mines of Vermont, Michigan and throughout America.
The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore
Blue Diamond Mines
Red-Winged Black Bird
Lawrence Jones
Green Rolling Hills
Coal Tattoo
Sally In The Garden
You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive
Dark As A Dungeon
Coming Of The Roads
Black Lung
"I knew the time was right," says Kathy. The idea for COAL began
to gel during the Sago Mine Disaster, which killed twelve WV
miners in 2006. COAL forced her to dig deep to find the power to
let these songs come forth. Co-producer Marty Stuart understood
her core relationship to these songs, that they were "in [her]
blood." Kathy says, "I think there's a mystery there. Somewhere
in my DNA, there's my great-grandmother singing, my grandma,
and my people, singing through me, with me."
For her performances in the 2008-2009 season, Kathy Mattea
performs with a very select group of musicians who evoke the
rich, cultural atmosphere of her new record along with her
greatest hits to intimately connect with her audience. It will be a
unique opportunity for fans to explore and rediscover an exceptional view of the American musical landscape through the eyes of
a world-class singer and performer.
Street Date: April 1, 2008
CAPTAIN
POTATO
RECORDS
http://www.mattea.com
http://www.imnworld.com/kathymattea
278 Main Street, Gloucester, MA 01930 | Tel: 978/283-2883 | Fax: 978/283-2330 | http://www.imnworld.com/ | INTERNATIONAL MUSIC NETWORK
Kathy Mattea
Coal (Captain Potato Records)
Release: 4/1/2008
Kathy Mattea, the beloved, Grammy-winning singer of such classics as “18 Wheels and A
Dozen Roses,” “Where’ve You Been,” and many other hits says that her new album offered her a “reeducation” in singing. That album, COAL, is a re-education for the listener as well, a record that
reshapes the way we think about music, reminding us of why we love it so much in the first place.
The songs on COAL are more than just mining songs. Mattea says she wanted to pay tribute to
“my place and my people” on a record that is as much a textured novel as it is an album. Raised near
Charleston, West Virginia, her mining heritage is thick: both her parents grew up in coal camps, both
her grandfathers were miners, her mother worked for the local UMWA. Her father was saved from the
mines by an uncle who paid his way through college. “It’s a coming together of a lot of different
threads in my life,” Mattea says.
Mattea’s childhood was steeped in the culture of mining and Appalachia, but despite having a
wide range of influences and “being a sponge about music,” she wasn't exposed to much traditional
mountain music. “I never thought I had an ear for singing real heavy Appalachian music,” she says. “I
marvel at the wonder of someone like Hazel Dickens, I just never thought I could do that.”
Still, she dreamed quietly about one day recording an album like COAL. Mattea says she has
been thinking about making this album since she was 19 years old and first heard “Dark as a
Dungeon”. From there on out she quietly cataloged mining and mountain songs that she would
someday record.
But the album was just a sketch of an idea until the Sago Mine Disaster, which killed twelve
West Virginia miners in 2006. “I thought, ‘Now is the time to do these songs’. Sago was the thing
that brought it all back to the surface,” she says. “When I was about nine, 78 miners were killed in The
Farmington Disaster, near Fairmont in 1968. When Sago happened, I got catapulted back to that
moment in my life and I thought, ‘I need to do something with this emotion, and maybe this album is
the place to channel it’. And so I knew the time was right.”
It was a life-altering decision, one that would forever change the way she thought about music
and singing. “This record reached out and took me. It called to me to be made,” Mattea says. “If you
go through your life and you try to be open, you try to think how can you be of service, how can your
gifts best be used in the world…if you ask that question everyday, you find yourself at the answer. And
it's not always what you thought it would be when you asked."
She found herself discovering a part of herself she had never known before. “I had to unlearn a
lot about singing. These songs are about getting out of the way; it’s about being with the song,
opening a space and letting the song come through you.”
Known as one of the consummate songcatchers, Mattea has worked her magic again: there's not
a bad song in the bunch. “When I decided to do this, I wanted to be very careful about the songs I
chose. I wanted some labor songs, some songs that articulated the lifestyle, the bigger struggles, and I
wanted a wide variety musically,” Mattea says. “Most of all, I wanted it to speak to the sense of place
and the sense of attachment people have to each other and to the land.” She chose songs by such
celebrated songwriters as Jean Ritchie, Billy Edd Wheeler, Hazel Dickens, Si Kahn, Utah Phillips,
Merle Travis, and Darrell Scott.
Mattea says she’s had good luck picking songs because she goes with her gut. “I’ve found so
much of my voice through interpreting other people’s songs, it’s like a marriage,” Mattea says. “I’m
breathing something into the song, collaborating with the writers on bringing something forth.”
But, she says, these songs had to go beyond that. “With these songs, it’s not about how you
sound, it’s about sheer communication and expression, and a way to give voice to someone else's life
experiences. It's being a voice for a whole group of people, a place, a way of life. And that's a sacred
use of music."
Her delivery of the songs approaches the sacred as well. Mattea bares herself on performances
like her a capella vocal of “Black Lung,” which reveals a singer at the height of her powers (and.left
onlookers in the studio in tears). She never over-sings, quietly and subtly working her way through the
powerful ballad “The Coming of the Roads” so that she delivers an emotional punch before the listener
has even realized it. There is the pumping energy of “The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore,” and
“Coal Tattoo,” the beautiful, understated pain of songs like “Red-Winged Black Bird” and “Lawrence
Jones.” Her delivery of “Green Rolling Hills” is so full of pride and joy that the listener will wish to
be a West Virginian, too, just to feel such beautiful homesickness.
Mattea wanted someone who could guide her with a firm, knowledgeable hand to work as the
album’s producer. Marty Stuart is well-known as a singer-songwriter but has been gaining a reputation
as a seasoned producer as well, and he seemed the logical choice.
“Marty has a relationship to a commercial career and to this music, just like me; he understands
that balance. And he’s been playing it since he was thirteen; he has a vocabulary in hillbilly music,”
Mattea says. “He brought things into focus that I couldn’t see on my own. He’s a dream to work with,
he’s just brilliant and so generous.”
The pickers on this album are a small, impressive lot that were as carefully chosen as the songs
and the producer. Providing percussion on Mattea’s first drum-less album is Byron House on upright
bass. “Byron is very important to this record,” Mattea says. “His slap bass is a big part of the sound.
He is a total ensemble player, a brilliant musician with no ego." Mattea has played with guitarist Bill
Cooley for 20 years and calls him “my silent partner, my unspoken collaborator on everything I do... I
have been orbiting around him, musically, for a long time.” Stuart Duncan offers mandolin, banjo
(which is featured on his own transitional track with “Sally in the Garden”), and fiddle. “He’s like
Appalachian yoga,” Mattea says. “There’s never a note that doesn’t come out perfectly. It’s so Zen.”
These three main pickers are joined by Stuart, who plays guitar, mandolin, mandola, and sings
with Patty Loveless for background vocals on “Blue Diamond Mines.” Also supplying background
vocals are Tim O’Brien (“my brother,” Mattea says) and his sister, Mollie O’Brien, who belt it out on
“Green Rolling Hills.” John Catchings offers a haunting cello, Mattea band member and studio
veteran Randy Leago contributes keyboard and accordion accents, and legendary steel player Fred
Newell makes a guest appearance.
Singer, songs, producer, pickers have all come together flawlessly to form a career record for
Mattea and a great gift for music lovers.
Mattea says she had to dig really deep, to get to the dark and light places that held the power
for her to let these songs come forth; but on the other hand, she sometimes worried that the songs were
“almost too effortless to sing.” Upon admitting this to Stuart, he didn’t miss a beat before telling her
that he wasn’t surprised. “That’s because it’s in your blood, pal,” he said. Mattea likes this
explanation. “I think there’s a mystery there: that somewhere in me, in my DNA, there’s my great
grandmother singing, and my grandmother, and my people, singing through me, with me” she says.
“Maybe that’s why it didn’t feel like work.”
Publicity:
Traci Thomas
Thirty Tigers
615.664.1167
[email protected].
ŒKATHY MATTEAŒ
“Mattea remains one of Nashville’s most spiritual singers, and the songs she
sings about love lost and humility are as fine as any she has recorded.”
–Brian Mansfield USA TODAY
“Her voice stands out as a rare blend of warmth and power …”
–Thomas Kintner HARTFORD COURANT
“…Mattea’s articulate, quietly resonant voice and pop-rock arrangements put her in
modern country’s honors sections with the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Nanci
Griffith.”
–Ben Horowitz NEWARK STAR LEDGER
“The soothing, elegant connection between country, folk, and Celtic.”
Mario Taradell, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
“ (Mattea) has often set her musical sights higher than the sort of cliché-ridden
romantic fodder for moonstruck teens and self-absorbed twentysomethings that's so
typical with contemporary country radio fare. ”
Bob Allen, AMAZON.COM
“The West Virginia-born singer and acoustic guitarist… has finally eased herself out of
the Nashville mainstream, and it suits her well.”
Bill Ellis, MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL
“Mattea's warm alto voice comes across opulently…. high marks for creative
expression and originality.”
Maria Konicki Dinoia, ALL MUSIC GUIDE
BILL COOLEY
A native of Santa Barbara, CA, Bill has been a stalwart Nashville veteran for over 20
years, called "one of Nashville's most respected sidemen" by Guitar Player magazine.
After working with Merle Haggard in California in the early '80's, he moved to Nashville in
1985 and has toured and recorded with Reba McEntire, Alan Jackson and Hal Ketchum.
Bill has played guitar for Kathy on stage and in the studio for the last 17 years. As a
songwriter, he's had his songs recorded by Kathy and Reba, among others.
Cooley's first CD, titled "Unravel'd," was released in 1997 and nominated for
Instrumental Album of the Year at the Nashville Music Awards (he lost to Chet Atkins!)
Music Row magazine called it "a magical gem of a guitar record," and Wood & Steel
magazine said it was "a terrific acoustic guitar album - Unravel'd is satisfying in the way
good music should be."
Bill's second CD, "A Turn in the Road" was released in 2004. Acoustic Guitar
magazine wrote "few guitarists cover as much musical ground as thoroughly as Bill
Cooley does on his second solo disc." According to Minor 7th.com, "Cooley's forte is
laying down any kind of groove with just his fingers and six steel strings."
Bill will be a part of Kathy's upcoming COAL tour, as well as her Christmas tour. He also
has plans to enter the studio soon and start work on his 3rd instrumental CD.
EAMONN O'ROURKE
Eamonn O'Rourke was born in County Donegal, Ireland. He grew up in a very musical
family and took an interest to music at a very young age. Eamonn plays bass, guitar,
violin, and mandolin. He began his professional career in his late teens, playing with
small, local irish bands. Eamonn moved to New York in 1993 to further his musical
career. Since moving to the United States he has had wonderful opportunities. Eamonn
has worked with a wide variety of artists throughout the United States and Canada. He
was given the chance to study with the great Mark O'Connor. He has also had a
successful career as a session musician. Eamonn has enjoyed producing and
composing numerous albums in his studio on Long Island. In 2002 Eamonn was given
the wonderful opportunity to join Kathy Mattea. He is delighted to rejoin Kathy and her
band, as a musician and friend, as she embarks on her new acoustic tour.
DAVE ROE
Dave Roe was raised in Hawaii, and drawn like a moth to the bright lights of Music City
in 1980. Since his arrival, he has recorded and toured with a host of legendary artists:
Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Dwight Yoakam, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins, Mel Tillis,
Vern Gosdin, Dottie West, Faith Hill, Vince Gill, Iris Dement, and Billy Joe Shaver. He
has collaborated on four Grammy Award-winning recordings, including one each with
Johnny and June Carter Cash. Although his current focus is recording session work in
Nashville studios (“where most of the dough is reaped”), he is occasionally enticed back
on the road for a special project, such as Kathy Mattea’s “Moving Mountains” tour. His
current hobbies are “battling acne and excema as a result of old age”, and he “dreams of
a life free from worry and pop country”.
KATHY MATTEA
DISCOGRAPHY & AWARDS
2008
ALBUMS
KATHY MATTEA
FROM MY HEART
WALK THE WAY THE WIND BLOWS
UNTASTED HONEY**
WILLOW IN THE WIND**
KATHY MATTEA A COLLECTION OF HITS***
TIME PASSES BY
LONESOME STANDARD TIME
GOOD NEWS
WALKING AWAY A WINNER**
LOVE TRAVELS
INNOCENT YEARS
ROSES
JOY FOR CHRISTMAS DAY
RIGHT OUT OF NOWHERE
COAL
**RIAA certified gold, ***RIAA certified platinum
1984
1985
1986
1987
1989
1991
1991
1992
1993
1994
1997
2000
2002
2003
2005
2008
#1 SINGLES
GOIN' GONE
18 WHEELS AND A DOZEN ROSES
LIFE AS WE KNEW IT
COME FROM THE HEART
BURNIN' OLD MEMORIES
SHE CAME FROM FORT WORTH
TOP TEN SINGLES
GOIN' GONE
18 WHEELS AND A DOZEN ROSES
COME FROM THE HEART
BURNIN' OLD MEMORIES
SHE CAME FROM FORT WORTH
YOU'RE THE POWER
A FEW GOOD THINGS REMAIN
WALK THE WAY THE WIND BLOWS
TRAIN OF MEMORIES
LOVE AT THE FIVE AND DIME
1
UNTOLD STORIES
LIFE AS WE KNEW IT
THE BATTLE OF THE HYMN OF LOVE
WHERE'VE YOU BEEN
TIME PASSES BY
LONESOME STANDARD TIME
STANDING KNEE DEEP IN A RIVER (AND DYING OF THIRST)
WALKIN' AWAY A WINNER
NOBODY'S GONNA RAIN ON OUR PARADE
455 ROCKET
AWARDS
1988
1988
1988
1989
1989
1989
1990
1990
1990
1990
1993
1997
1997
1998
CMA/SINGLE OF THE YEAR "18 WHEELS & A DOZEN ROSES"
ACM/SINGLE OF THE YEAR "18 WHEELS & A DOZEN ROSES"
ACM/SONG OF THE YEAR "18 WHEELS & A DOZEN ROSES"
CMA/FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR
ACM/TOP FEMALE VOCALIST
ACM/SONG OF THE YEAR "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN"
CMA/FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR
CMA/SONG OF THE YEAR "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN"
GRAMMY/BEST COUNTRY PERFORMANCE/FEMALE
RADIO& RECORDS COUNTRY READERS POLL/BEST FEMALE VOCALIST
GRAMMY/BEST SOUTHERN GOSPEL, COUNTRY GOSPEL OR BLUEGRASS
GOSPEL ALBUM (GOOD NEWS)
CMA/VIDEO OF THE YEAR "455 ROCKET"
NASHVILLE MUSIC AWARDS/BEST COUNTRY ALBUM "LOVE
TRAVELS"
MUSIC ROW MAGAZINE/BEST VIDEO "I'M ON YOUR SIDE"
VIDEOS
YOU'VE GOT A SOFT PLACE TO FALL
WALK THE WAY THE WAY THE WIND BLOWS
18 WHEELS AND A DOZEN ROSES
COME FROM THE HEART
WHERE'VE YOU BEEN
TIME PASSES BY
LONESOME STANDARD TIME
STANDING KNEE DEEP IN A RIVER (AND DYING OF THIRST)
THERE'S A NEW KID IN TOWN
WALKIN'AWAY A WINNER
NOBODY'S GONNA RAIN ON OUR PARADE
MARY DID YOU KNOW
MAYBE SHE'S HUMAN
CLOWN IN YOUR RODEO
455 ROCKET
I'M ON YOUR SIDE
THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS
http://www.mattea.com
http://www.imnworld.com
2
Aspen Times News for Aspen Colorado - Arts and Entertainment
Page 1 of 3
Kathy Mattea present in her past
From country to Celtic, to ‘Coal,’ singer explores her heritage
By Stewart Oksenhorn
Aspen, CO Colorado
March 23, 2007
ASPEN — Since her descent from the top of the country
music charts, a stepping down that was not exactly
unwelcome, Kathy Mattea has stopped chasing hits, and
started running down her past. The music she has made
over her last several albums may not capture listeners of
commercial country radio in the way that such songs as
1986’s “Love at the Five and Dime,” or 1988’s “Eighteen
Wheels and a Dozen Roses” — a No. 1 hit — did. But the
music has resonated with the singer.
Singer Kathy Mattea
performs Friday,
March 23 at Aspen's
Wheeler Opera
House. (Kristen
Barlowe)
“The Innocent Years,” from 2000, Mattea’s first album in
17 years that was not released by Mercury Records,
explored the sounds of her Celtic heritage, as well as her
beginnings as a folk-music lover. “Roses,” from 2002,
Click to Enlarge
deepened the Celtic influence with an array of whistles —
some played by Mattea herself — and accordions on such
Browse Aspen Times Photos
tunes as “Isle of Inishmore” and “That’s All the Lumber
You Sent.” For her most recent album, 2005’s acousticbased, song-oriented “Right out of Nowhere,” it was the process of making it that brought Mattea back in time.
“We recorded that sitting in a circle, like how I used to play,” said Mattea by phone from her home in Nashville.
Last October, in Aspen, Mattea revisited an earlier era when she appeared as a special guest with the annual
Tribute to John Denver concerts at the Wheeler Opera House. Mattea’s first-ever solo performance, for a local
TV show in her native West Virginia, when she was in 10th grade, was a version of Denver’s “Gospel Changes.”
Several years later, as a college student trying to find something meaningful in her life, Mattea sat down in a
dorm lobby with a group of folk musicians and played Denver’s “The Eagle and the Hawk.”
“To pull out stuff I hadn’t thought of in a long time, that changed my life, that were present at pivotal moments
in my life — that was amazing,” said Mattea, of her appearance at the Tribute to Denver concerts.
A coal miner’s granddaughter
Mattea’s latest project takes her back even further in time, and gets just as close to the core of her personal
makeup as the John Denver songs. The album, which is mostly recorded and to be released, Mattea hopes, late
this year, is titled “Coal,” and addresses a subject that was a powerful presence in Mattea’s childhood and her
family history.
Mattea was not exactly raised surrounded by coal mining and all the drama — poverty, union activity, mine
disasters — associated with it. Cross Lanes, W.V., unincorporated, semi-suburban area of 60,000 — “like a noman’s land between the country and the city,” she describes it — was centered around chemical plants. Mattea’s
father worked for Monsanto, in several supervisory positions.
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Aspen Times News for Aspen Colorado - Arts and Entertainment
Page 2 of 3
But both her grandfathers were coal miners. Mattea’s mother worked for the United Mine Workers before she
got married. And both of her parents came from genuine coal towns — one 10 miles upriver from Cross Lanes,
one 10 miles downriver.
“It’s the backdrop against which all the family stories are told,” said Mattea, whose maternal grandfather died,
and paternal grandfather retired, before she was born. “A lot of my cousins still live in the town where my mom
grew up. There are a lot of threads there.”
Mattea was, and remains in a way, close enough to coal culture that she understands how significant the mining
industry is in people’s lives. She compares it to farming: to a miner, a mine is more than just a shaft in the
ground, much as a farm is more than a patch of land to the person who earns his living from it. The connection
between person and place is thick and complex.
“There’s this thing about West Virginia, about your roots going really deep,” she said. “I’ll meet people from
West Virginia who moved away 25 years ago, and they still think of themselves as West Virginians. It’s the
same thing with coal: This is part of you; this is part of your heritage.”
West Virginia being part of the musically rich Appalachian region, the mining life worked its way into numerous
songs, led in popularity by Merl Travis’ “Sixteen Tons.” And while there are plenty of songs about the difficulty
of working the mines, the well of stories runs deep. There are songs about the unions, and even more about
union-busting; about mine explosions and disease; about dreams of something better. There are even songs that
express positive sentiments about coal mining; Mattea recalls hearing someone on a TV program saying that he
loved the smell of coal.
“The interesting thing going through these songs, you get a love/hate picture,” she said. “People love the life,
and are so connected to the land.”
Finding that faint glimmer of light, while surrounded by so much death and deprivation, gives the genre of the
mining song its power. Mattea noted that Bill Cooley, a guitarist with whom she tours, said while recording the
“Coal” CD, “God, I see how little hope there is to change things.” “Hope in the face of hopelessness — that’s
what’s going on in these songs. There’s dignity in that.”
Mattea has been compiling a list of songs — dating as far back as the ’40s, and as recently as the ’90s — related
to mining. As she went through the songs, and thought about how she would handle them, she saw that she
wanted her voice, and contemporary approach, to serve as a bridge between the old songs and a modern
audience unfamiliar with the style of music. She worried that she herself might not be close enough to the songs
to deliver them convincingly.
“It’s a real challenge,” said Mattea, who expects to include only one song from “Coal” — Billy Edd Wheeler’s
“Redwing Blackbird” — when she performs Friday, March 23, at Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House. “I grew up
there, but I didn’t actually grow up doing that. I was scared. I wanted to do this stuff justice. I hate that thing
when it feels kind of stilted.”
“Coal” features straight bluegrass, straight country, straight folk — all styles Mattea felt reasonably comfortable
with. But there was another element — what she calls “Appalachian yell singing,” a precursor of bluegrass —
that she had only dabbled in before. And one song she was determined to do, Hazel Dickens’ “Black Lung,” that
people tried to warn her away from.
But Mattea took on the recording as a chance to expand her artistry. She practiced the “yell” singing until she
felt she could do it justice. For “Black Lung,” which got an a cappella treatment, she took six months singing it,
recording it, playing it back, before she got it right enough.
“I felt I got to learn another layer as a singer,” she said. “It was going back and being a student.”
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Aspen Times News for Aspen Colorado - Arts and Entertainment
Page 3 of 3
She also got herself a good teacher: Marty Stuart, the country star who is producing and plays on “Coal.” Stuart
hails not from coal country, but from Mississippi. But at the age of 14, he went on the road with bluegrass great
Lester Flatt, then played with Doc Watson and Johnny Cash. Stuart has also shown a deep interest in historical
music projects: his “Badlands” focused on the Native Americans of South Dakota; “Soul’s Chapel” dug into oldtime gospel; and “The Pilgrim” explored his own roots in the deep South. Mattea figures that’s enough of a
background to fill in any gaps in her own musical knowledge.
“He’s really steeped in this stuff. He has a real reverence for that,” she said. “And playing that bluegrass with
Lester, about the coal fields — he has a feel for it.”
When Mattea began to slip into her Celtic side on the “Coal” sessions, Stuart had to drag her back. “He said,
‘No, you’ve got to stay on this side of the ocean,’” she recalled. As an exclamation point on the project, Stuart
added a bit from “Wildwood Flower” to the tail end of a song. Stuart, said Mattea, had learned the tune from
Mother Maybelle Carter herself, as genuine a source of American music as there is.
“It’s a lovely link to the tradition we’re from,” said Mattea.
Kathy Mattea performs at 8 p.m. at the Wheeler Opera House. Tickets are $45, available at the Wheeler Box
Office.
Stewart Oksenhorn’s e-mail address is [email protected]
BACK
http://www.aspentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070323/AE/70323005&templat... 3/27/2007
For the
miners
Kathy Mattea’s new album
digs into Appalachia’s heart
By Ben Salmon
The Bulletin
H
ere’s a depressing little
exercise for you to try:
Hop on the Internet, visit
Google Maps, and search for
“Danville, W.Va.” Once you’re in
Danville, click over to “Satellite”
view and zoom out a little bit.
See that giant, grayish area
west of town? That’s where a
coal-extraction company has
blown off the top of a mountain
to make its job easier.
Now, zoom out more, and follow the trail of grayish spots that
pockmark the rolling, green hills
of the Appalachian Mountains
to the southwest of Danville,
extending across West Virginia
and into eastern Kentucky.
Every one of those spots represents what used to be a mountain. The mountains are now
flat, thanks to the extraction
method known as mountaintop
removal.
Coal is king in eastern Kentucky, as well as in West Virginia, where country music star
Kathy Mattea grew up. Mattea,
who’ll play Sunday at the Tower
Theatre in Bend (see “If You
Go”), is from Cross Lanes, W.Va.,
just outside the state capital of
Charleston and about 30 miles
north of that huge gray patch
IF YOU GO
What: Kathy Mattea
When: 8 p.m. Sunday, doors open at 7 p.m.
Where: Tower Theatre, 835 N.W. Wall St.,
Bend
Cost: $38 in advance, $41 at the door.
Tickets available through the Tower by calling
317-0700, visiting www.towertheatre.org, or
stopping by the box office at 835 N.W. Wall
St., Bend.
Contact: 317-0700 or www.towertheatre.org
near Danville.
Her parents didn’t work in the
mines, though her mom was a
secretary for the miners’ union.
But both Mattea’s grandfathers
were coal miners, and in West
Virginia, that’s enough.
“Even when it’s your grandparents, there’s a lot of that lore
that gets passed down,” she said
Monday in a telephone interview
from her home in Nashville.
Even so, it wasn’t until she
moved to Nashville that Mattea
really began to understand the
connection between the coal
industry and folk music. (Even
though Mattea owns two Grammys in country categories and
four Country Music Association
awards, her music has always
been more in line with the traditions of folk.)
“When I was a tour guide
at the (Country Music Hall of
Fame) … in Nashville in 1978, I
was 19 and I learned all this history about Nashville and country
music that I didn’t know. We had
old films that played every halfhour … and I would go and sit on
my lunch break and watch these
things,” Mattea said. “Among
our treasures was this film of
Merle Travis doing ‘Dark as a
Dungeon.’
Continued next page
Kathy Mattea’s new album of coal-mining songs, simply titled
“Coal,” is due out early next year. Mattea and other musicians
were asked to sing at a memorial service for miners killed in the
Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia in 2006.
Courtesy Kristen Barlowe
From previous page
“That song always stuck with
me, and over the years, I realized
there were several songs with
coal themes that I really liked,
and I thought, ‘Oh, maybe someday I’ll make a record of that
stuff,’” Mattea said. “And then
the Sago disaster happened last
year.”
The Sago disaster, you may
remember, was a mine explosion that killed a dozen miners in
Sago, W.Va., on Jan. 2, 2006. Mattea and several other musicians
were invited to sing at a memorial service for the 12 miners, and
that experience was the impetus
for Mattea’s new project, “Coal,”
a collection of coal-mining songs
due out next year.
“We went down there and
sang, and I thought, ‘Now is the
time. This is all right at the forefront for me,’” she said. “It was
just obvious that it was time for
me to do it.”
The result is a spare, folky record of coal-mining tunes that
span the second half of the 20th
century. The track listing isn’t
final, but “Dark as a Dungeon,”
Billy Edd Wheeler’s “Coal Tattoo”
and “Ballad of Lawrence Jones,”
a song about a miner killed on
the picket line, are possibilities.
Mattea and producer Marty
Stuart recorded “Coal” in an
acoustic set-up that befits the
old-time nature of the songs, she
said.
“The thing about this music
is it really is roots music. It’s the
music of a group of people expressing a way of life,” Mattea
said. “It’s much more raw and
connected to people living their
lives. It’s not about sounding
beautiful.”
At about the same time as the
Sago disaster, Mattea saw Al
Gore present his now-famous
slideshow, “An Inconvenient
Truth,” about global warming. She was so shaken by what
she learned she signed up to be
trained to give the presentation
herself. (Since then, she has traveled across the country doing
just that.)
As you might expect, her
two interests soon became
intertwined.
“Suddenly, every rock I turned
over had coal under it,” Mattea said with a chuckle. “I got
trained to do the Gore slide show,
and there were references to
coal and fossil fuels in that. And
they encouraged us to personalize it and I wanted a picture of
a (coal) strip mine. So I go looking online, and I find this slide
of a mountaintop removal site in
West Virginia that’s half the size
of Manhattan.”
(That’s the one near Danville,
by the way.)
“That opened up a whole other
Courtesy Vivian Stockman / www.ohvec.org, flyover courtesy SouthWings.org
Aerial view of a large mountaintop removal site near Kayford, W.Va.
can of worms about mountaintop removal and what’s going
on with that,” she said. “I had no
clue.”
In fact, Mattea returned to
West Virginia to see first-hand
the effects of mountaintop removal on nearby residents.
There’s a video of the trip on her
Web site that shows the singer
listening to story after story, often driven to tears. And there’s a
clip of her stunned silence when
asked to describe what she saw.
This week, she found the
words.
“It’s like eco-rape, and no one
knows about it. It’s a rural place.
It’s remote and hard to get to. It’s
sparsely populated, and there’s
not a lot of industry,” Mattea
said. “And coal money powers
the state, but the coal companies
are mostly headquartered outside the state. These coal rights
were bought in the late 1800s;
I have songs about that. They
were bought from people who
didn’t know what they were selling. So now, basically, the mineral rights of West Virginia are
owned by people who are not
West Virginians, but they pay for
the campaigns of the people who
are in office.
“It’s a very complex and challenging situation, and I’m telling
you, man, people do not want to
talk about it.”
As is her nature, Mattea is using her celebrity to try to educate people about mountaintop
removal and effect change in a
way that makes sense for both
industry and individuals.
“We have to find a way to talk
about the longer view, because
nobody wants to change their
way of life and everybody gets
threatened when we start talk-
ing about this stuff,” she said. “Is
there a way that we can all try to
come together and listen to each
other and find a long-term solution where we can all feel like
we’re being heard and considered? That’s the thing I’m looking for is civil discourse about
the long-term problem.”
The cause is just the latest in
a long line of activism that has
blossomed late in Mattea’s career.
Because she had a string of hits
in the late 1980s and early 1990s
— including four that reached the
very top of the charts — Mattea
has been able to devote these last
few years to projects that are, if
not radio staples, perhaps more
rewarding.
“I think I was really lucky with
the commercial success I had,
because I really didn’t feel like I
was compromising artistically.
It was a really special time in the
music business. The door was
wide open to a lot of interesting
music,” she said. “When I came
up, Nanci Griffith and Steve
Earle and Lyle Lovett were being
played on mainstream country
radio. It was a real, kind of miniGolden Era, and I feel like I got a
chance to get in on it.
“At a certain point, though,
you make your choice. You either
chase after that, or you say, ‘Well,
what do I want to do?’” Mattea
continued. “I just decided that
I’d had all that. I’ve got the gold
records on my wall. I’ve got the
Grammys and the CMA awards.
Now I can go and push my own
boundaries and explore my roots
and collaborate with interesting
people and have fun.”
Ben Salmon can be reached
at 383-0377 or bsalmon@
bendbulletin.com.
KATHY MATTEA GOES RIGHT TO THE HEAD OF
THE CLASS
AWARD WINNING ENTERTAINER
ACCLAIMED CAREER
ADDS
DOCTORATE
TO
May 15, 2007, Nashville, TN-Twenty years after she left West
Virginia University without her degree, Kathy Mattea returned last
weekend to be presented with an honorary doctorate of the arts.
The award-winning entertainer had started college thinking a degree
in engineering would be her career path. Her heart and voice had
other plans.
By her sophomore year, Mattea realized there was another place
where she belonged...in front of a crowd. "I got so caught up in
singing and playing music that I didn't have time for much else." Not
long after realizing her potential as an artist, Mattea left WVU
headed to Nashville, taking with her lessons learned.
Fast forward 20 years and two Grammy's later to the same
mountain girl and the same mountain town, and find Mattea still
learning, while having a little fun. This time, lessons are lighthearted and filled with a little teasing. After being schooled in the meaning behind the different colors on
commencement robes, someone introduced Mattea to the Dean of the Engineering Department. " They
introduced me as his "most successful dropout". I just hung my head as he got closer and closer to me. It was
pretty funny. "
Dr. Kathy Mattea proudly displays herhonoary
doctorate in the arts. Congratulating her is West
Virginia University President David C. Hardesty Jr.
ABOUT KATHY MATTEA
The 20 year country music veteran turned humanitarian has been honored with 2 Grammy's, two CMA Female
Vocalist of the Year Awards, and her song "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses" was named CMA Single of the
Year. Kathy has grown personally and as an artist over these twenty years. That growth is apparent in the fluidity
and depth of her music and her causes. She finds her current position is the most satisfying. "I'm exactly where I
want to be," says Mattea when reflecting on her career.
Kathy's latest project, "Coal," is a collection of Appalachian mining songs produced by Marty Stuart. The album is
expected to be released in the fall. Though busy touring and recording, the West Virigina Native finds time to use
her celebrity to reach out to others about issues that she is passionate about. Mattea, currently one of 1000
people chosen by Al Gore to speak on a similar Power Point Presentation as that in the movie "An Inconvenient
Truth, is reaching out and educating the public on the effects of Global Warming.