Feb 22
Mattea’s COAL CD digs to the roots
Kathy Mattea “COAL” (Captain Potato Records)
- Mar 05 - Station Inn - Nashville, TN
- Mar 06 - Station Inn - Nashville, TN
- Mar 26 - Ina and Jack Kay Theatre - College Park, MD
- Mar 30 - Paramount Arts Center - Ashland, KY
- Apr 01 - Barns At Wolftrap - Vienna, VA
- Apr 02 - Barns At Wolftrap - Vienna, VA
- Apr 03 - Ramshead Onstage - Annapolis, MD
- Apr 06 - Tin Angel - Philadelphia, PA
- Apr 10 - Highline Ballroom - New York NY
- Apr 18 - Sheldon Concert Hall - St. Louis, MO
- Apr 19 - Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago, IL
- Apr 20 - The Ark - Ann Arbor, MI
- Apr 21 - Kentucky Theatre - Lexington, KY
- May 09 - Plaza Theatre - Glasgow, KY
- May 10 - Renaissance Theatre - Mansfield, OH
- May 09 - Hoover Auditorium - Lakeside, OH
Kathy Mattea’s new CD is as gritty as a coal miner’s cold fried potato sandwich that’s accidentally fallen on the mine floor. It’s earthy, it’s soulful and in many ways a solemn tribute to America’s miners who daily gamble with their lives when they head underground to do a hard day’s work.
In fact, it was the lost gambles of 12 miners who died in the 2006 Sago mine disaster in Mattea’s native West Virginia that stoked a long-simmering fire for her to do this album, which is a collection of 11 songs about mining. More specifically, they weave stark tales about the hardships of digging for black gold.
Mattea, whose own family has deep roots in the West Virginia coal mining industry, said she’s always had the spark to do this album, nagged partly by the dark memories of her childhood when a 1968 disaster killed 78 miners in West Virginia.
“Sago was the thing that brought it all back to the surface,” she says in a press release heralding the upcoming release of COAL. “I thought, ‘Now is the time to do these songs.’”
The result is an impressive, albeit somewhat gloomy, CD that will put Mattea in a lot of spotlights, with the exception of Nashville’s commercial song factory, where Mattea once was a hot property. This is not — repeat, not — Kathy Mattea’s attempt at a comeback into the star spotlight.
But, after a few listenings of COAL, I have to wonder: Has her star ever sparkled brighter than it does on this CD?
Listening to these songs, mostly intense laments about the impoverished lives and brutal deaths of miners, leaves little doubt that Mattea intimately knows her subject matter. One in particular, “Red Winged Blackbird,” is chilling, both in its lyrics and Mattea’s soulful delivery. (No, it’s not the tune attributed to Ray Sawyer of Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. The advance copy of the CD fails to list the song’s writers, and a quick Internet search failed to turn up this particular song. But, it’s one of the CD’s standouts.)
Mattea turned to Marty Stuart to produce this project, because, she explains, they both shared a background of commercial music success and Stuart is gaining a reputation for his skills as a producer of acoustic and bluegrass music. The result is more the former than the latter, but it should have a strong appeal to bluegrass fans. Most of the songs are done in the genre’s style, minus the drive of a five-string banjo. The banjo that is on the CD is served up frailing-style by premiere fiddler Stuart Duncan, just one of many notable pickers who added to the COAL project. Duncan, incidentally, also contributes mandolin and fiddle to the tracks.
Besides handling production chores, Marty Stuart plays guitar, mandolin and mandola, and also joins Patty Loveless on background vocals on “Blue Diamond Mine.” Also guesting on the CD are Tim and Mollie O’Brien, who provide harmony vocals to a West Virginia anthem entitled “Green Rolling Hills.”
The album is unique in many ways for Mattea, who has always leaned far to the acoustic side of country. For one, from track to track, the sound is stripped down to bare-bone essentials, including one a capella tune, “Black Lung.” As the song’s title conveys, this is not “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses” revisited. It’s a powerful song with an equally powerful delivery. Mattea’s publicists say folks in the studio when she recorded the song were moved to tears. Mattea herself concedes this is the first CD she’s ever done that doesn’t have drum tracks.
Mattea also digs to the depths of her soul in delivering her rendition of the Darrell Scott tune, “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive.” Perhaps no one does a better job with this song than Scott himself. Patty Loveless included a soulful version on her 2001 bluegrass album, and now Mattea’s delivery stands up to the benchmarks set by Scott and Loveless. Maybe it’s just one of those powerhouse songs that you’ve lived or know someone who’s lived this tale before even thinking about tackling it.
COAL will not put Kathy Mattea back on top of the country charts, but it will be embraced by the fans who cheered her on in her heyday. And it will gain her many new fans.
And, I have to wonder, and going far out on a limb in the process: Could COAL gain Mattea a Grammy nomination? It’s early in the Grammy season, so to speak, but this CD seems to be cut from the kind of mold the Grammy committees embrace.
No matter what awards COAL does or doesn’t garner, it’s a winner.
COAL will be released April 1 on her own label, Captain Potato Records.
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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