Kathy Mattea is one of those folk singing anomalies of modern times, a person of stardom who seems to stay right-sized. 

(Photo: LancasterArts.com)

In recent years, she has sent a bold message to her adoring fans and to the world, by speaking out against mountaintop removal coal mining.  Though she may be too modest to admit it, she rides a noble steed of music in the first wave of the cavalry.

She left her east Kentucky home at nineteen to chase the country rocking dream in Nashville.  Since that time, her music career has flourished and endured.  Though she has shaken off her shoulder-padded jackets and perm, her allure is undeniable.

Her rich, deep voice graces not just her own works, but also injects a throbbing young heart into old classics.  “Black Lung,” “The Coming of the Roads,” and “The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore” are a few. 

When she performs, acoustic guitar strapped on her front, Mattea looks not unlike Joan Baez.  Dark hair falls softly over her brow, and her eyes are sharply focused like she is tasting the music coming out of her mouth.  Her slender left hand works the neck.  Obviously a master of her craft, she also appears like a down-to-earth human being.

It’s that amicable personality which endears her audience, say authors Silas House and Jason Howard.

In their new book Something’s Rising, Kathy Mattea features as one of many Appalachians fighting against ruthless mountaintop removal, for social justice. 

Mattea has actually been active on a number of environmental and humanitarian fronts:  Al Gore’s Climate Project, MTR, AIDS research, health care.  She has generously donated time and resources to causes in which she believes.

She has just released a new album, Coal, which was met with high praises.  The album is a tribute of the highest order to her home, and the love-hate dichotomy of coal in Appalachia. 

(Image: tinypic.com)

“Both my grandfathers were coal miners, my parents grew up in coal towns,” she says in the film Coal Country, “and I’ve been thinking for years of making a record of old coal songs.”

Kathy is a person who seems never so distant as to refuse a chat and a cup of coffee.  She said in the book, “the biggest gift you can give somebody is just being totally present.”

(Larry Gibson [yellow shirt] and Kathy Mattea.  Photo: OHVEC)

She still feels strongly bound to her home ground in Kentucky, and like many Appalachians, whatever their circumstance, counts herself no differently from her fellows.

She tries simply to ensure that her life’s product will be of some use to the world.

Artists like Mattea give us the warm and fuzzy.  Grounded nature, compassion, and an indefatigable sense of identity make them, truly, just folks. 

 

 

 

SOURCES

1.  Something’s Rising.  Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal.  House, Silas and Jason Howard.  The University Press of Kentucky.  2009.  pp.113-130.

2.  Coal.  Kathy Mattea.  2007.  Accessed:  08 Jan 2010.  http://www.mattea.com/KathyMatteaCoal.html.

3.  Coal Country.  Phylis Geller.  Evening Star Productions.  2009.  http://www.coalcountrythemovie.com. 

 

Kathy Mattea - (Photo: images.radcity.net)