I love Kathy Mattea...

I love Kathy Mattea: her music, her spirituality and her ethics. My sweetheart, Dianne, turned me on to her a number of years ago when Mattea was working in the heart of the Nashville mainstream. She had a bunch of great hits - and albums - that mixed beauty with truth and goodness in ways that were simultaneously commercial and creative. Her commitment to showing how the everyday light of real people is able to pierce the darkness for just a moment was a constant. And she had some killer bands who blended traditional Appalachian sounds with the contemporary country music that was selling like hotcakes.

One of her finest early songs remains, "Where Have You Been?" - a tune that tugs on the heart in a way that continues to strike me as tender but honest - and helps me renew my own love every time I hear it. It may be too sweet for some tastes, but sounds to me like a prayer...

As the industry and market changed, Kathy Mattea wrestled with how to stay true to her own musical calling and still be viable. A fascinating compromise - and one of my favorites from this period - is her smouldering version of Gillian Welch's "455 Rocket" - a song that I LOVE to perform - both because it is playful with sexual double entendres (a genre that always cracks me up) and a great vehicle for rockin' out in a Southern country groove (another genre that I adore which continues to make my old suburban, Connecticut friends - where I grew up - scratch their heads and smile.) She also released a HOT Christmas album mixing gospel, country and Celtic sounds in a highly satisfying way.
Sadly, after just one more album, the Mercury Record label refused to renew Mattea's record contract which was a short term bummer but a long term blessing; she, too, was feeling that the confines of contemporary country music no longer worked. She said:

Country music, as a format, seemed to be narrowing down again, at the time I was exposed to all this cool Celtic and world music... I began to feel like the next generation was coming up, and I could either choose to play in that arena, or go and see what else might be out there for me. I began to dream of making music without all these rules. I wanted to do more than just think out of the box--I wanted to see what I could do if there was no box!! I wanted to experiment with some of the sounds I had been exposed to during my trips to Scotland. Adding unexpected elements, like traditional Celtic instruments or more ethnic drumming to our shows has allowed us more diversity. I've always enjoyed making that kind of cultural and musical soup.

She now records with Narada Records calling it: "a really unique fit, my door into country music was always folk and acoustic-based. Narada is well-respected and there's a lovely synergy there between what I have been yearning to do and their philosophy as a company. Sometimes it can be a little frightening leaving what one knows so well. But these changes are exactly what make you grow as an artist - and most importantly - as a person. Your life is a series of landmarks and I've always tried to convey the internal and spiritual lessons learned by them in my music. It's a way of connecting your past to your future." (www.narada.com/kathy_mattea_bio.htm

And after three lovely CDs, she recorded "Coal" which may be her magnum opus bringing together her passion for environmental justice with her spiritual commitments of

compassion and justice. Her home website puts it like this:

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 is an artist I respect, emulate and enjoy and now I can't wait to see her tonight in our own beautiful Colonial Theatre with some dear friends.