Mattea, Kathy

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Kathy Mattea

Singer, songwriter

In some respects Kathy Mattea is country music’s best-kept secret. Largely overlooked by the mainstream, Mattea is turning out some of the finest progressive country, folk, and blues of any performer—a fact not lost on country fans. Mattea’s understated beauty and resonant alto are perfectly suited for acoustic-backed ballads; the singer has made several such songs number-one country hits during her long tenure as a Nashville recording artist.

Twice named Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association, Mattea seems poised to enter the 1990s as a versatile, thoughtful, and prominent performer. St. Paul Pioneer Press correspondent Bill Bell noted that the singer “has a knack for pretty, intelligent ballads that express sentiments that seem to go with rock-solid relationships in an uncertain world.” Bell praised Mattea for her “deep, throaty, sincere voice and her easy-access image,” concluding: “People in the industry have known about [her] for years, but it wasn’t until 1988 that she really took off.”

Mattea’s voice is indeed earthy, a natural gift she has learned to use effectively. She has had little formal vocal training, perfecting her craft instead by singing a variety of folk, bluegrass, blues, and country. Mattea was born and raised in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, the daughter not of a coal miner but of a white-collar supervisor. She was an excellent student, enrolling at West Virginia University to study physics and chemistry.

While a student at WVU Mattea began singing with a bluegrass band. Realizing that she preferred performing to physics, she dropped out of college and headed to Nashville, hoping to find work as a folk singer. Mattea was in no way an overnight success, however. To support herself she took a job as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame, a position she learned to appreciate because it taught her poise in front of a crowd. What little singing she could find was usually back-up work and commercial jingles. “In the beginning there were some frustrating years,” she told the Chicago Tribune, “when it just seemed like I was standing still. Other people were coming out of nowhere and being talked about, and I was kind of anonymous.”

Even after she signed with Mercury Records in 1983 and released her debut album Street Talk, Mattea still struggled. Street Talk “faded pretty quickly,” to quote Andrew Vaughan in Who’s Who in New Country Music. Its middle-of-the-road sound failed to find an audience; Mattea’s future at Mercury might have been brief had she not been invited to open for country star George Strait in many of his road concerts.

Two events saved Mattea’s career: her touring with

For the Record…

Born in Cross Lanes, W. Va.; daughter of a Monsanto Company supervisor; married Jon Vezner (a songwriter), 1988. Education: Attended West Virginia University.

Country singer, 1983—. Signed with Mercury Records and released debut album Kathy Mattea, 1983. Had first Number 1 single “Love at the Five and Dime,” 1986. Subsequent hits include “Walk the Way the Wind Blows,” “Untold Stories,” “Goin’, Gone,” and “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses.” Has made numerous live appearances in the United States and abroad.

Awards: Single of the Year award, 1988, for “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses,” Female Vocalist of the Year award, 1989 and 1990, and Entertainer of the Year nomination, 1990, all from the Country Music Association.

Addresses: Record company —Mercury, Worldwide Plaza, 825 8th Ave., New York, NY 10019.

Strait and her decision to reach for a more traditional folk style. In retrospect, she calls the years between 1983 and 1986 “a subtle gift.” She told the News and Sun-Sentinel that on the road with Strait, “I was able to learn things without the magnifying glass of the public eye focused on me during my formative years—and learning how to be an artist, not just a singer, takes time.” Mattea did take her time and eventually returned to music that properly showcased her sonorous voice. When in 1986 she finally managed to place a song at the top of the country charts—“Love at the Five and Dime”—Mattea was already a seasoned performer. “Looking back on it,” Mattea told the Chicago Tribune, “I’m really glad it has happened the way it has, because it feels more solid somehow. I’ve gotten to the point where I really want to do it the way I want to do it—and if that doesn’t work, I’ll just go find something else to do.”

There is little chance Mattea will have to “find something else to do.” The late 1980s saw her blossom into a major country entertainer with a string of top-ten hits and best-selling albums. She won the 1988 Single of the Year award from the Country Music Association (CMA) for “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses,” and walked off with the CMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year award the following two years in a row. No longer an opening act, Mattea now headlines her shows and is becoming known to a wider audience through invitations to prime-time television variety shows. Recent Mattea hits hershowsandi “Walk the Way the Wind Blows,” “Untold Stories,” “Goin’, Gone,” and “Battle Hymn of Love.”

Mattea does not rest on formula work, no matter how tempting it might be. One of her biggest hits in 1990 was “Where’ve You Been,” a song written by her husband, Jon Vezner. “Where’ve You Been”—a stark departure from standard country fare—is a plaintive work about a loving husband and wife placed on different floors in a nursing home after 60 happy years of marriage. Mattea called her recording of the song—and its somber but hauntingly beautiful video—a “gamble,” though she added: “People usually don’t want to rock the boat, … but I feel it’s important to always remember to take a risk if it make sense.”

At this point in her career, Mattea can afford to gamble. Like country singers K. T. Oslin and Anne Murray, she is a performer whose appeal is grounded in a down-to-earth, friendly approach that has little to do with appearances. “I don’t feel like what I do is a sexual thing,” she said. “I don’t have big cleavage, and I don’t flaunt that. It’s just not part of my schtick. I don’t even think in terms of gender very much. I mean, I think of myself as a human being first, and I’m singing to other human beings.”

News and Sun-Sentinel contributor Holly Gleason allowed that Mattea’s voice “has grown stronger from extensive touring.” Mattea’s is one of the finer vocal instruments in modern country music, especially as she applies it with restraint and never seems to compete with her back-up arrangements. The singer’s subject matter is also strong, ranging as it does from genial love ballads to deeper, more challenging efforts. Gleason concluded that the best work of Kathy Mattea “goes far beyond country’s drinkin’, cheatin’ and weepin’ songs to celebrate the depth of emotions and the complexities of real lives…. Mattea [makes music] that is anything but obvious, even as it celebrates themes that are so common.”