Reviews
Artist:Kathy Mattea
Album:Coal
Label:Captain Potato
Tracks:11
Website:http://www.myspace.com/kathymattea
Kathy Mattea has earned a lot of respect in recent years. Why? She has followed her musical instincts down a more indie route rather than churn out more of the same of what made her famous. Another reason is that she is passionate about what she believes in and there is no greater evidence of this than in her new CD, Coal,produced by Marty Stuart, a superb concept album centered around the theme of coal and it's effect on the people who depend upon it for their livelihood. Simple accompaniment, never over orchestrated, it simply paints a picture with music and lyrics, of a time, place and people.
The granddaughter of two West Virginia coal miners, Mattea was only nineteen when she began thinking about making the album after hearing the Merle Travis tune "Dark as a Dungeon" for the first time. Ultinmately she was inspired by the 2006 explosion and collapse at the Sago mine that left 12 miners dead.This was when she began to research and collect coal songs. Whilst making this album Kathy has said, she kept a piece of coal on her desk, to keep her focussed. She has herself acknowledged that she could not have done this album justice in her twenties, but now, looking back on the history of her West Virginia roots, she has created a powerful and emotive collection, which more than does the album and the miners represented, justice.
Inside the CD sleeve, among other images, is one of the generating plant taken from her cousin's land in West Virginia, where she grew up. In fact both her Grandfathers were coal miners. She views this CD as a reclamation of her history and a way for her to connect the dots of her family history. She has reflected that she never even knew she lived in Appalachia and that for the nineteen years she lived there, she never once considered what this building did, and going back and learning this history allowed her to fall in love with her homeland all over again. Reminiscing on the Sago Mine Disaster in 2006 when all but one miner perished, as the worst disaster in West Virginia since a 1968 incident that killed 78 people. Although Kathy would have only been nine when this incident took place, it doubtless played a part in the making of this album.
Darrell Scott's contribution to Coal, You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive, has been covered by many artists from Brad Paisley to Patty Loveless. Kathy delivers a very different, personal interpretation of what is ultimately a gut wrenching song.
Dark as a Dungeon evokes the bleak darkness of conditions inside the mine whilst the more upbeat Green Rolling Hills written by the late hobo Utah Phillips stands perhaps as a tribute to the land where Kathy grew up and the newly discovered affinity she has with it.
The LNR don't Stop here Anymore, written by Jean Richey, is a stirring evocation of how people's lives were changed, almost cut off, after the demise of the mine service of the Louisville-Nashville Railroad.
One of the album's most sombre offerings comes in the form of Billy Ed Wheeler's beautiful "Red Winged Blackbird," in which the blackbird becomes a poignant metaphor for the bright young men with promising futures, who died slow deaths from coal dust inhalation.
Conversely in Coal Tattoo he also provides the more upbeat story of a miner on the run from life, looking not only for work, but a reason to believe in what he's doing. This allowed Kathy and band - long time guitarist Bill Cooley, David Spiker and Amon O'Rourke, to expose their inner hillbillies and really showed what the band could do.
An a capella version of the song Hazel Dickens penned about her miner brother's death in 1973. Black Lung could make even the hardest heart turn cold as this young man's story reminds US of the true cost to many in the mines. I read that it took Kathy six months to work out if she could even sing this song; there is no doubt she does both the song and the young man in question, justice. The finality of the song, the album and the young miner's life, hits you like a punch in the stomach.
I have to admit that it takes more then one listen for this album to be absorbed into your psyche. Then you can't help but appreciate that these songs ultimately are about the spirit of the people who live and work in the coal industry, those who have done so, and those who died in the line of their work. It is impossible not to share the empathy and respect in Kathy's voice as she puts her mark on these songs from a variety of sources, which have been revived from a long and hard past of mining and loss. In many ways it is an honour to have something so personal to an artist be shared as these songs and stories have been. I have enjoyed the CD much more since and have even been inspired to read up on the history of the closed coal mine near to where I live. Like Kathy, I realised that I don't remember much about it - I wonder how many of us actually relate to that.
Once these songs reach your heart and mind, they will stay with you for a very long time. Perhaps that, like the legacy of coal mining, is the true measure of this album's worth.
Helen Mitchell