IMN : Updates for Kathy Mattea

Watch Kathy Mattea's 'My Coal Journey'

IMN

May 16th, 2013

A dedicated arts and education advocate, Grammy Award winning singer Kathy Mattea is also deeply involved in social and environmental activism. She believes that music can influence social change by giving a voice to those who have none. Trained by Al Gore following An Inconvenient Truth, Mattea has traveled the country with her own lecture presentation: My Coal Journey, a reflection on her coal country heritage, her personal experiences as an activist, and her artistic journey. My Coal Journey is a one hour program of stories, illustrated through a PowerPoint slideshow, and enhanced by solo performances of select songs from Mattea’s hit album, COAL. The presentation traces Mattea’s motivation for beginning the recording project, her research into the musical genre’s history, her family’s ties to coal mining culture in Appalachia, and the environmental and social justice issues surrounding coal mining methods in today’s world.

Watch Kathy’s My Coal Journey presentation at Penn State from January 31, 2013:

Listen to Kathy Mattea on Mountain Stage Tomorrow!

IMN

April 11th, 2013

From Mountain Stage

Kathy Mattea’s performance on Mountain Stage will start broadcasting on NPR affiliates across the nation tomorrow. Click here to find out when you can hear the show in your area and click here to learn more about the program. Won’t be near a radio? Not to worry – you’ll be able to stream her set at www.npr.com and on your mobile device through the free NPR Music app.

(Photo Credit: Brian Blauser/Mountain Stage)

Fan Captures the Essence of a Kathy Mattea Show

IMN

March 26th, 2013

From My Kind of Country

Concert Review – Kathy Mattea at Silver Center For The Arts in Plymouth, NH
By: Jonathan Pappalardo

Kathy Mattea came ready to give it her all. Amidst a blinding snowstorm, and the after effects of the head cold that had eluded her to three days prior, she took the stage Feb 23 in the teeny 665 seat Hanaway Theatre (located in isolated Plymouth, NH) with just three other musicians, a caravan of guitars, and a message.

Of late Mattea has been outspoken on the subject of coal, or “Black Gold” as she sings in a recent song. Her crusade opened a so-far two-album floodgate, a life-changing detour into the Appalachian Folk songs of her West Virginian heritage and the most fully realized music of her thirty-year recording career. Her otherworldly alto graces the lyrics of Jean Ritchie, Laurie Lewis, Hazel Dickens, and Alice Garrard with the plainspoken beauty of a woman directly in line with her authentic center.

But even more impressive is Mattea’s ability to blend the “new” with the old, creating a woven tapestry linked by environmental cause, a deep sense of history, and a sharp ear. She opened with the first track on Calling Me Home (“A Far Cry”) before launching into “Lonesome Standard Time,” her #11 peaking single from 1992, without skipping a beat. She then graced the audience with my favorite of her singles, “Standing Knee Deep In A River (Dying of Thrust),” which was recently reinstated back into her set.

To read more click here

A Conversation With Singer and Activist Kathy Mattea

IMN

February 20th, 2013

From WPSU

A Conversation with Country Music Singer and Activist Kathy Mattea

The two-time Grammy winning singer Kathy Mattea has never been afraid to push the creative envelope. Her newest albums, “Coal” and “Calling Me Home,” are her most personal and daring. Both records pay tribute to her rich alto and to the folk music of her native Appalachia. We’ll talk with her about the power of music, her fight to end mountain top removal, and about facing Alzheimer’s disease head on.

Kathy Mattea's 'My Coal Journey'

IMN

February 1st, 2013

From The Centre Daily Times

Grammy-winner Kathy Mattea lends voice to environmental causes in talk at Penn State
By: Luke Michael Petkac

Students and adults alike packed The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel on Thursday to hear two-time Grammy award-winning musician Kathy Mattea discuss her environmental activism, her personal experiences with the coal industry and to perform a few hit songs as part of the Forum Speaker Series.

Though she’s best known for her guitar playing and powerful vocals, Mattea is also heavily involved in both social and environmental activism. She has traveled all over the nation giving her presentation, “My Coal Journey,” which focuses on the environmental and social injustices caused by large-scale coal mining.

“Much to my surprise and delight, I seem to be able to help further the conversation in the best way I can — by telling my own story,” Mattea told the crowd of about 300 people.

Mattea said that she first became interested in the coal industry after the 2006 Sago Mine disaster. The disaster claimed the lives of 12 miners in West Virginia, her native state

To read more click here

Kathy Mattea Says: "Music Fuels Conversation"

IMN

January 29th, 2013

From Gazette

Grammy-winning artist Kathy Mattea returns to her roots on latest record
By: Cara Hedgepeth

Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter Kathy Mattea will stop by the Weinberg on Saturday night and she’s got someone she wants you to meet.

“It’s kind of like introducing audiences to your new friends,” said Mattea of the music from her latest album, “Calling Me Home,” released in September. Saturday’s concert is part of a month-long tour of the East Coast. Mattea picks up the tour again in April with stops in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and California.

Audiences who come out Saturday expecting to hear Mattea croon the country and bluegrass chart-toppers like “Goin’, Gone,” “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses,” and “Burnin’ Old Memories,” that made her a commercial success in the 1980s and 1990s, won’t be disappointed.

“We’ll play from the touchstones,” Mattea said. “From what people expect to hear when they come see us.”

To read more click here

Kathy Mattea: Long-lost Daughter

IMN

January 28th, 2013

From Port Washington Patch

Kathy Mattea: Long-lost Daughter
By: Mark Underwood

At the Jeanne Rimsky Theatre on Saturday, an audience waiting for the start of Americana crooner Kathy Mattea’s show gazed upon a handsome lineup of nine stringed instruments – several guitars, a standup bass, a wired violin, mandolin and a bouzouki. They probably weren’t thinking of Jean Ritchie just then, but it was a musical still life for an evening that would ultimately involve Ritchie.

This first appearance at the Landmark venue for Kathy Mattea, mainly known for 16 mainstream country top ten hits, delighted a clearly expectant audience. As observed by John Platt in his introduction, Mattea emerged as part of an 80’s folk-country hybrid later dubbed Americana. Mattea herself confessed she was “maybe 24” at the time, with matching country bouffant hair and shoulder pads. “A rough time to ‘get famous,‘” she said. Famous she was, and her prior work brought out a large local audience.

To read more click here

Kathy Mattea Highlights Appalachia

IMN

January 24th, 2013

From The Hartford Courant

Kathy Mattea In Two Concerts
By: Erik Ofgang

Celebrated country-pop singer Kathy Mattea has deep ties to Appalachia and its coal industry.

“Both my grandfathers were coal miners,” says the West Virginia Native during a recent interview. “My dad’s dad picked 30-inch coal with a pick and in the winter he never saw the light of day. He’d go down in the mines before the sun came up and come up after it went down.” (Thirty-inches was the height of the shaft, so miners had to worked hunched over or on their stomachs or backs.)

This personal connection has inspired her last two albums, 2008’s “Coal,” and her latest, “Calling Me Home,” released in September. When Mattea performs on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 8 p.m. at Infinity Music Hall in Norfolk, she and her band will perform songs from both recent albums as well as major hits from throughout her career.

“On ‘Coal’ I just went back to all the lexicon of songs written about coal mining over the years, I did that as a response to a big mining disaster back in West Virginia and that record changed my life,” she says. “It was like finding a missing piece in your jigsaw puzzle, it was discovering this treasure trove of music. On ‘Calling Me Home’ I wanted to continue exploring that music but not with such a boxed-in theme. I had also gotten more involved with environmental causes in all kinds of ways, and I wanted to have sort of a subtle environmental theme under it. So the album is sort of the celebration of the culture of Appalachia and the unique kind of beauty of the land. Most of West Virginia and Appalachia is very rural and there’s a certain way that people live in cooperation with the land. I wanted to try and highlight that.”

To read more click here

Humor, Emotion Mark Kathy Mattea Performance

IMN

January 22nd, 2013

From The Sturgis Journal

Humor, emotion mark Mattea performance
By: Laura Kurella

Anticipation was high Saturday prior to Kathy Mattea’s performance at Sturges-Young Auditorium.

“I think its going to be fabulous show,” said Delbert Walling of Coldwater. “I’ve been listening to her since I was a student…when I learned to play her songs, but I have never seen her live before.”

Claudia Pahls of Sturgis said she was “thrilled” to get to see Mattea’s performance.

“Her Christmas album is in my top 10 Christmas albums of all time,“ Pahls said. “I am so excited to see her.”

Once she took the stage, Mattea promptly connected with the audience.

To read more click here

The Ever-Compassionate Kathy Mattea

IMN

January 18th, 2013

From The Toledo Blade

Country singer Kathy Mattea to perform Friday in Monroe
By: Brian Dugger

Kathy Mattea has always been a bit of a softie. She has a couple of dogs she rescued from the streets of Nashville, and as she talked by phone last week, one of them, Sam, was curled up on the couch next to her.

“He’s 8, and he has cancer. He’s rallied like a puppy lately, but he’s been struggling a little this morning,” Mattea said.

Mattea’s compassion and social activism has always made her a beloved figure throughout her country music career, which marks a milestone this year. It’s been 30 years since she released her first single, “Street Talk.” It took her several more singles to break through with “Love at the Five and Dime” in 1986, but she’s enjoyed a recording career that has produced 15 studio albums and 41 singles, including the trucking anthem “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses.”

“I feel grateful to still be doing this. I haven’t gone to sleep, and I’m not slogging through it for the money. I didn’t want to be doing ‘Eighteen Wheels’ for a paycheck in my 50s,” Mattea said. “I feel like there is a wisdom that comes with doing this for so long. I’m better able to connect with the heart of a song.”

To read more click here

Kathy Mattea Digs Into Her WV Roots

IMN

January 14th, 2013

From The Toledo Free Press

Country star Kathy Mattea shares coal heritage in song
By: Vicki L. Kroll

When Kathy Mattea started digging into her family’s West Virginia history, she unearthed a load of Appalachian mining songs.

“When ‘Coal’ came out [in 2008], in order to do that album, I wound up exploring all this music that I grew up hearing, kind of in the background, but there was nobody to teach me about it when I was young,” she said.

“So it was like going back and picking up a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, and it was so rich and so fun that I just wanted to keep going.”

Released last September, “Calling Me Home” finds the singer again paying tribute to her roots with more mountain music.

To read more click here

Kathy Mattea Takes Her Roots to Heart

IMN

December 14th, 2012

From Sturgis Journal

Music Q&A: Mattea takes her roots to heart
By: David T. Farr

Where do you go after you’ve charted more than two dozen Top 40 country singles, won two Grammys, four Country Music Association Awards and two Academy Of Country Music Awards, including three honors for Female Vocalist of the Year?

If you’re singer Kathy Mattea, you go “home.”

Recording songs with impact has long been important to Mattea, which is why she took to heart some important words a musician friend said to her after a 2006 mining tragedy in her native West Virginia.

“Kathy, this is what music is for — processing emotions we don’t always understand,” her friend told her.

Mattea was forever changed by the mining disaster, and that impact can be heard in music from her latest album, “Calling Me Home,” that reflects life in Appalachia.

The album follows her 2008 release, “Coal,” which Mattea released after feeling so much grief after the mine disaster.

“Calling Me Home” is a deeper look into the singer’s Appalachian heritage.

Mattea is currently on the road in support of “Calling Me Home.” Her tour comes to Sturges-Young Auditorium Jan. 19. Tickets are still available.

Mattea burst onto Nashville’s Music Row in 1983 with her self-titled debut album, winning over fans and peers alike with her unique blend of folk, bluegrass, country, gospel, and a rare singer-songwriter intimacy. That kind of winning connection only helped to ensure her place among other top artists of the 1980s and ’90s.

Just hearing a few of the songs Mattea charted with makes you in awe of her impeccable talents. Songs’ like “Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Roses,” “Love At The Five And Dime,” “Walking Away A Winner,” “Time Passes By,” “Going Gone,” “Untold Stories,” “Burnin’ Old Memories,” “Nobody’s Gonna Rain On Our Parade,” and “455 Rocket” showcase her diverse nature as an artist, but it was the heartrending “Where’ve You Been” that made her star shine brightest.
In an interview with the Journal, Mattea discussed her influences, becoming a successful music artist and how she felt a personal connection to the mining disaster.

David T. Farr: There’s no doubt you’ve inspired singers with your career, but who are some of the musicians and singers who inspired you?

Kathy Mattea: I think everyone in my generation would probably list Emmylou Harris as an influence.

To read the full Q&A click here

Kathy Mattea on BBC Radio

IMN

December 10th, 2012

From BBC Radio

Kathy Mattea in session for Bob Harris
By: BBC Radio

Grammy-winning singer Kathy Mattea performs songs from her latest album Calling Me Home in session for Bob.

Tracklist:

- Hello, My Name is Coal

- Love at the Five and Dime

Click here to see a clip of the show!

To read more about the session click here .

Kathy Mattea Premieres New Video!

IMN

November 13th, 2012

From American Songwriter

Video Premiere: Kathy Mattea, “Hello, My Name Is Coal”
By: Andrew Leahey

Raised in the mountains of West Virginia, Kathy Mattea explores the dirty, dangerous lives of coal miners on her new album, Calling Me Home. It’s an all-star record, featuring cameos from Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Stuart Duncan and Bryan Sutton. Mattea is still the star, though, with a voice as deep and haunting as the mineshafts that fill her lyrics.

On “Hello, My Name Is Coal,” she sings about the love/hate relationship between coal miners and the profession that brings them money and sickness in equal measure. The song is told from coal’s point of view, and the music video — a stark, black and white clip from director Becky Fluke — features old-school photographs of Appalachian miners, including Mattea’s own grandfather.

“This song knocks me out because it dares to tackle the complexity of the subject of coal in a three minute song,” she says. “For many people back in Appalachia and beyond, coal is both a blessing and a curse, and much of the time there’s no easy way to talk about it. Larry and Jenee did a beautiful job of opening up the subject, in a three minute song. The pictures came from filmmaker friends and photographer friends. I wanted to include real pictures of the coalfields, and real people. I think there’s a beauty and depth to them, especially in black and white. We were lucky to be able to collaborate with these great artists. The last face is my grandfather, all suited up for the night shift in 1940 in Fayette County, West Virginia. Becky Fluke did a beautiful job with this video — she is such a talented director and has accomplished much at a young age. What a joy it was to work with her.”

Watch the video below and read more here

Kathy Mattea Returns to Her Roots

IMN

November 9th, 2012

From GoTriCities

Grammy winner Kathy Mattea returns to her roots in music, activism, advocacy

Often, the old ways are the best ways. Call and response is a hymn-singing tradition in the mountains of Appalachia, so it is fitting that the mountains have called singer/songwriter Kathy Mattea, and the West Virginia native has responded.

Mattea will bring her unique mixture of the old ways and new perspectives to East Tennessee on Nov. 11 for her 7 p.m. “Calling Me Home” concert at East Tennessee State University’s Martha Street Culp Auditorium and, the next day, in a keynote speech to the 26th Annual Arts Education Conference at Johnson City’s Millennium Centre.

The two-time Grammy winner and Country Music Association female vocalist of the year has sojourned back to what she calls her “place and people” for her last two, of 18, albums — “Coal” in 2008 and this fall’s “Calling Me Home.” While Mattea caught many people off guard with “Coal,” an album of old-timey Appalachian mining songs, she’s delved even deeper into her Appalachian heritage with “Calling Me Home.” This new direction and process of learning traditional bluegrass styles and songs by legends such as Hazel Dickens — and “wrapping her voice around them,” as she calls it — has resulted in enthusiastic reviews and a new coast-to-coast U.S. tour.

To read more click here

Confirmed Tourdates As Of

IMN

June 20th, 2013: Heritage Port Amphitheatre Wheeling, WV USA [Kathy Mattea with the Wheeling Symphony]
June 20th, 2013: Heritage Port Amphitheatre Wheeling, WV USA [Kathy Mattea with the Wheeling Symphony]
June 21st, 2013: FestivALL, Live on the Levee, Schoenbaum Stage Charleston, WV USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
July 17th, 2013: Hopkins Center for the Arts Hopkins, MN USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
July 20th, 2013: Smoky Mountain Center For The Performing Arts Franklin, NC USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
July 21st, 2013: The Waterside Theatre Manteo, NC USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home ]
July 24th, 2013: Center for the Arts Jackson, WY USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
July 25th, 2013: Music Ranch Montana Livingston, MT USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
July 26th, 2013: Strings Music Pavilion Steamboat Springs, CO USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
July 27th, 2013: Platte Valley Community Center Saratoga, WY USA [Kathy Mattea ]
August 10th, 2013: Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua Washburn, WI USA [Kathy Mattea Calling me Home]
August 11th, 2013: Door Community Auditorium Fish Creek, WI USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
August 16th, 2013: The Opera House of Boothbay Harbor Boothbay Harbor, ME USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
August 18th, 2013: Havelock Country Jamboree Havelock, ON, CANADA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
September 14th, 2013: Ruth A. Knoll Theater Hartford, WI USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
September 20th, 2013: The Old Theater Oriental, NC USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
September 21st, 2013: Carolina Theatre Greensboro, NC USA [Kathy Mattea Calling me Home]
September 28th, 2013: The Sanctuary Concerts Chatham, NJ USA [Kathy Mattea Calling me Home]
October 5th, 2013: Oklahoma International Bluegrass Festival Guthrie, OK USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
October 6th, 2013: Orpheum Theatre Wichita, KS USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
November 2nd, 2013: Minnesota Orchestra Minneapolis, MN USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]
November 23rd, 2013: Germantown Performing Arts Center Germantown, TN USA [Kathy Mattea Calling Me Home]