The Innocent Years

The year was 1989, and Kathy Mattea had just won her first of two consecutive CMA Female Vocalist of the Year awards on the strength of her first No. 1 hits: the hopeful "Goin' Gone" and the country classic "Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Roses." The day after the ceremony and the celebration, when so many artists would have lined up to a media blitz, Mattea and her husband, songwriter Jon Vezner, got on a plane for an extended musical pilgrimage to Scotland, the motherland of Country Music.

"I had this gut level feeling that it was really important to go - that it would somehow have big meaning later in my life," she recalls. "Sitting around playing music late at night, and talking about why we do it, with people whose musical world wasn't as big as mine was really grounding for me at a time when I was getting swept up in the insanity of newfound success.

That's the Kathy Mattea fans and critics have come to appreciate over her 15+ year career: a singer with a blue-chip voice who follows her own stars, rather than letting herself get caught in the trappings of stardom. Since emerging from a folk and bluegrass background nurtured in her home state of West Virginia, she has earned the respect of music fans by guarding her independence and remaining close to her music's roots.

Mattea has just released her new 11th studio album on May 16, 2000 on which she co-produces with both Ben Wisch and Keith Stegall. The project is a collection of insightful and stirring songs about the trials of love and family titled The Innocent Years. Recorded during a period when her own resilience was put to the test by her father's battle with cancer, the album may be Mattea's most cohesive and emotionally direct project to date. "It's a really emotional record for me," she says. "I feel like I've done a lot of growing up during the process." This is a record about the periods in people's lives when the prospect of loss forces them to take measure of what they value most. "A lot of us have so much information coming at us every day, and life has gotten so complicated," says Mattea. "A lot of people are trying to get back to something simpler, to the essence of what life is about."

The Innocent Years marks the first time Mattea has taken such an active role in the entire process. "Many times Ben or Keith would look at me and say 'You take it from here,'" she says. She took the producer reins during much of the mixing and mastering process, and added many of the overdubs late at night in her home studio. "I feel like I own this record in a whole new way," she says.

The album opens with its title track, a slow, marching groove braced by rhythm guitar and the lush piano work of Matt Rollins. Co-written by Mattea with her husband Jon Vezner and Sally Barris, the song anchors the album thematically and sonically. It bears the inescapable influence of turning 40 years old and helping both her father's struggle with life-threatening illness, even as much of the album was being made. "I was sort of forced to grow up in a lot of ways, and this song for me kind of distilled into one piece of music all the emotions I felt," she says. "There's a sense that you wouldn't go back, or give up knowing what you know. But sometimes, you think it would be nice to go back and just rest for one day in that time when everybody else make it okay."

The brisk "Trouble With Angels" was discovered by her tour manager. "It's really hard to find songs with tempo that have any kind of lyrical substance to them," Mattea says. "This song addresses in a light-handed way, issues of faith. God will take care of you, but not neccessarily in your way, and He might just make you wait until the last possible minute."

"Why Can't We" is a song about the stoicism and perseverance Mattea has seen first-hand in her parents' generation. "They lived through the Depression and both of them had big families. They were all poor. But there was a lot about their lives that was good - a sense that everybody was equal because everybody was poor. Here we are in this time of prosperity, looking around trying to fill that hole. And this is the question: if they could do it then, why can't we figure it out now?"

Randy Sharp wrote "Prove That By Me," a song that captures the thread of optimism that permeates so much of Mattea's material. "This song just killed me the first time I heard it," Mattea says. "It's a song with a lot of hope. People say waiting is hard, but it's about commitment. It's beautiful musically, and there's just this magic to it." Graham Nash adds harmony and a soaring harmonica solo on this track. A related sentiment is explored in "Callin' My Name," which Mattea also co-wrote with her husband and Barris. "When someone you love says your name," she says, "it's a primal thing, like a signature on your soul."

Of course love can't be nurtured until it is found, and love can't be found until we're open to it and until fate throws it in our paths, a realism that Mattea explores in "Out Of The Blue." "It is about that moment when you realize that a door is opening to the next part of your life," she says.

"Keith brought me "I Have Always Loved You," and it just slayed me," says Mattea. "This is about that feeling, when you find your soul mate, of the timelessness of the relationship. It's as though it was there all along, waiting for you and you just had to find it."

"(Love Is) My Last Word" is about sticking to the commitment love asks of us. It marked one of the most exciting moments in the studio during the making of The Innocent Years. Mattea recalls, "As soon as we finished the first take, everybody said, 'Wait, wait! Don't stop the tape! Give us one more run at it!' There was this sense that people were on fire. We counted if off and played it again and it was magic. And after it was over, everybody was just bouncing off the walls." Two electric guitars, organ, smoking fiddle and the backing vocals of Kim Richey and Bob Haligan flesh out this intense, soulful, and forward-looking cut.

It wouldn't be a Kathy Mattea album without a Celtic touch, and we hear it in the whistles on "Trust Me." Co-written by Jon Vezner and Steve Wariner, Mattea says, "It's about that moment when you make the decision to go for it. If it's about the real thing, it's about vulnerability and trust. You can't have true love without risk."

Near the end of the album we hear the song that most directly speaks to the poignancy of her father's struggles in the last year, "That's The Deal." Mattea describes the song, a true story, as a "wonderful gift." It's a deeply emotional piece by Hugh Prestwood, dealing with the kind of commitment that is simply and profoundly, unwavering. "You just stay," she says. "No questions asked."

The albums's coda is a bonus track that has been a crowd pleaser in Mattea's live shows. "BFD" by Don Henry and Craig Caruthers is a whimsical country song complete with love story and wordplay. "It was a spontaneous moment in the studio," Mattea explains. "We chose not to mess with it. We've been doing it on stage for a while now, and it brings the house down."

Kathy Mattea was born in Cross Lanes, West Virginia in 1959. She received formal voice lessons, sang in church, and discovered guitar-based folk music at a summer camp during her high school years. She moved to Nashville in 1978 as part of a bluegrass band and worked various jobs, including a stint at the Country Music Hall of Fame, before being discovered for her vocal prowess off her songwriting demo tapes. Mercury signed her in 1983, and since then she has won five CMA Awards, two Grammy Awards and four ACM Awards. She is known worldwide for her warm, personable stage shows and the caliber of her bands.

More about the Innocent Years CD
Kathy and Her Special Relationship with her Fans
Spotlight Home Page