A Few Moments with … KATHY MATTEA
It has been thirty-seven years since Kathy Mattea drove to Nashville with a few friends. Originally from the coalmining district of West Virginia, she later embraced her heritage, recording music by and about miners and the mining communities. Before that, she was a country star with four Number One hits among nearly forty hits in all. She spoke to us from her home in Nashville, where she lives with her husband, songwriter Jon Vezner (who wrote her hit “Where’ve You Been”), and several cats.
What gave you the idea of coming to Nashville and trying for a career in country music?
It was 1978. I was nineteen. I’d finished my sophomore year studying physics, chemistry, and engineering, but I was playing music in my spare time. Music made me feel free. It was that simple. I had some friends going to Nashville and they invited me, and I thought, “If I don’t go, I’ll wonder ‘What If…’ the rest of my life.” I was the family’s brainiac child, and I knew what they expected, but I took a giant left turn.
Do you ever wonder what you would have done if you hadn’t followed your heart to Nashville?
No. I just know I had the courage or naïveté to break away from the gravitational pull of my family’s expectations.
Were there moments when you felt like packing up and moving back to West Virginia?
I gave myself five years. There were lots of moments of disappointment, even despair, but I just put it in my head that I mustn’t stop. You know my biggest fear was being just successful enough to keep me on the hook, but not successful enough that I could build a life on it.
You were signed by Frank Jones at Mercury Records?
No one much mentions him these days. He’d just lost Reba McEntire and he was heading into retirement, but he changed my life in an instant. He looked up and said, “We’re going to invest in you.”
From your second LP on, you were produced by Allen Reynolds. He produced Don Williams, Emmylou Harris, and of course he went on to produce Garth Brooks. Did you meet Garth early in his career?
Oh yes! Garth was hanging out at the studio. He was young, hyperactive, buzzing with energy. You’d feel the electricity around him. Garth was a song-based performer, and Allen was very focused on THE SONG. He’d say, “It’s always about the song. Sing it well, frame it well, and it’ll work for you.” And he was right.
How did you first hear “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses”?
Song publishers used to send out cassette tapes in those days. A cassette came in my mailbox from the Nelson brothers, Gene and Paul. It was song number two or three on that cassette. I brought it to Allen, thinking he could use it. He said, “That’s a great song. You should do it.” I never thought about me doing it because women generally didn’t do trucking songs. But it became the CMA Song of the Year.
Several years passed before you placed one of your own songs on a LP (“Leaving West Virginia” on Walk the Way the Wind Blows). Were you writing songs through these years?
I wrote in college. I didn’t have a big desire to put everything in my life down in song. My husband, Jon Vezner, cannot NOT write songs. I’d exercised that muscle but I decided to concentrate on singing. I guess my biggest regret is that I didn’t write more. It sounds vain perhaps, but I think I would have been really good.
Were you the first to record a song that’s now a Christmas standard, “Mary, Did You Know”?
Not the first, but certainly one of the first. The song was certainly nowhere near as well known when I recorded it. Christian recording artist Michael English was the first to record it. The songwriter, Buddy Greene, was a member of the Gaither Vocal Band, but he never recorded it as far as I know. I found it when I was talking about doing a seasonal album and a friend of mine who listened to a lot of Contemporary Christian music said, “If I were in your position, I’d record this song.” She recited the words, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Did the coal mining disaster in Sago, West Virginia affect you personally? Did it give you the inspiration to record your ‘Coal’ album?
I was off Mercury Records and was trying to figure out what came next. I was in a waiting place. Then Sago happened (in 2006). I was absolutely devastated. I was almost baffled by the grief I felt. I’d wanted to do an album that drew on my roots in the coalmining district of West Virginia, and I couldn’t get it to gel. After Sago, it rose up in me. I channeled all of my grief into those songs.
You never worked in the mines. Was it hard to sing first-person songs about mining?
I was so worried about sounding inauthentic. Marty Stuart produced the album. He said, “It’s in your blood, pal.” Both my grandfathers were miners, but my dad got out. All the little vignettes of family stories I heard came together into a bigger story. Coal wasn’t a distant thing to me—it was part of the fabric of my life, even though my dad never came home with coal dust on him. From my parents’ home, you can see the plume of smoke or steam from the largest coal-fired power plant east of the Mississippi.
You’ve delved deep into the Celtic roots of American music. If someone said to you, “I’ve heard some Irish music, and I don’t hear a connection to country music,” what would you say to them?
I’d say, “On one level, you’re right.” But here in America, Celtic music met the Blues and that’s what gave birth to country music as we came to know it. To me, the fiddle tunes are a transitional moment. A bridge. There’s a Scottish fiddle tune, “The Flowers of Edinburgh.” We play it here under different titles, but there was a great moment when I saw my fiddle player and a Scottish fiddler player work out a joint arrangement. You could see the connection right there between our music and their music.
You were the first or among the first in country music to champion HIV/AIDS activism. Was there a personal connection, as in someone you knew, or just a cause that cried out for your attention?
By the time of the 1992 CMA awards, I’d lost three friends to HIV/AIDS, and I had another friend in Los Angeles who clearly wasn’t well, but that was a time when you didn’t know if it was safe to tell. During the CMAs that year, people were wearing green ribbons for environmental awareness, but I wore three red ribbons for the friends I’d lost to AIDS. I was publicly challenged to explain. I didn’t want to grandstand, but I wanted to show support.
Changing the subject completely. Have you ever been on a cruise before?
Yes, one to Antarctica that set sail from Tierra del Fuego and one to the Arctic. I’m guessing we won’t see any icebergs or glaciers on The Country Cruise! I’m really looking forward to it. My bass player went on the 2014 Country Cruise and loved it. He said the musicians and guests were treated so well. And of course I’m looking forward to playing the intimate venues and meeting the fans. I think it will be a great time.
Don’t miss having a great time with Kathy Mattea aboard The Country Music Cruise 2016 Book today!