Kathy Mattea

Kathy Mattea

INNOCENCE LOST

Kathy Mattea Battles Back with THE INNOCENT YEARS
After riding high for a decade as a songwriter and performer, country veteran Kathy Mattea has had a rough couple of years. Her mother suffered with a variety of disabling ailments, her album ground to a halt as her label was bought by a giant multinational, her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And she turned 40. The good news is that when the dust settled, things began working themselves out. Her mother's condition stabilized, her father's cancer went into remission, and her album project started anew. The result of that last bit of good news is THE INNOCENT YEARS -- the finest of the West Virginia native's 11 studio albums. It's also her most personal, with songs about faith, and trust, and appreciating simple, enduring things. Speaking with David McGee from her manager's office in Nashville, Mattea reflected on the journey she admits has changed her forever.

Barnes & Noble.com: How did your family crises affect your approach to writing and selecting material for THE INNOCENT YEARS?

Kathy Mattea: I jump into the process, and the record begins to gel at some point. Then I begin to get a picture of where I'm going. But it's not always something I know on the front-end. Anyway, our family went into complete crisis mode. I have two older brothers, and we rallied as a family. But I was the one really who spent a lot of time talking to my dad about the spiritual issues and the emotional issues of it. We'd sit up into the wee hours talking about everything from who's going to hose off the patio in the springtime to how does it feel to be staring death in the face.

And he was real open about it. It was a life-changing thing. I said to him many times, "I will not be the same person. Whether you live through this or you don't, I won't be the same." But in a good way. He is a man with no regrets. He looked up at me one time and said, "I'm ready to go, but I'll miss you guys too much! I want to see what happens. I'm too excited about life!" He's that kind of guy. To make a long story short, he was supposed to live about four months, maybe a year at the most. But he responded to the chemo like very few people have. His tumor shrank down to the point where they could operate on it, and he's in complete remission right now. They can't find any cancer in his body. So after going through all of that, now I get to keep him. In the meantime, I turned 40 in this last year.

So all of these things are going on that make you wake up and realize you are a mortal person. You can choose to cruise through your life, but if you do, you're going to open your eyes at some point, and it's gone. So you can't help but say, "What have I not done that I want to do?"

Barnes & Noble.com: Prior to the kind of emotional turmoil you've gone through, do you think you were focused enough on the kind of themes you sing about to pull off this kind of album?

KM: I had "Why Can't We" in that first batch of songs. But it became clear which things were beginning to fit, and which were not. So it was a matter of holding the standard high. Actually, there was a lot of pressure to get this record out from me -- "oh, my God, the clock is ticking, the clock is ticking" -- and I decided not to do it until it was right. When I made that decision, a bunch of stuff happened. I mean, I hadn't written a song in years! And my own music became a healing thing for me, a healing process for me in a way it had never been before. You know, I remember just when, at a point where it was just excruciating, and I thought, "I'm not going to be able to stand this one more day, this intense, emotional place." I went out on the road, and I had this amazing experience. People have come up to me for years and said, "This song got me through this time in my life," "This song has really helped me heal from this experience." And I found that my own music did that for me in a way it had never done before. And I think that also made me see the making of the album differently, and made me choose songs differently.

Barnes & Noble.com: "That's the Deal" is a beautiful Hugh Prestwood song that examines an older man's vigil by his sick partner's bedside. Did you have a moment when you wondered whether you were repeating yourself in revisiting a theme similar to that of "Where've You Been?"

KM: I've been pitched many, many songs about old people and aging, and I've shied away from them. But this one spoke to me because I've watched my parents do that with each other. At different times both of them have been in this situation, and I've watched them not waver from each other. I didn't hesitate for a second; not for a second. In fact, this song came to me in a really unusual way, and there is a history between me and Hugh that made this like the healing of an old wound. Influenced by the wrong person, I let go of a song of Hugh's that I should never have let go. It broke his heart, and it broke mine and shattered our confidence in each other for a time. When he gave me this song, I called him up and said, "I have to tell you that this song is beautiful, and it's a rare gift for me. But the fact that you would entrust me with it after the way I broke your heart is more important than the song itself." We had some lovely moments about it, and it was felt like coming full circle. This song is meaningful to me on many levels; my father weeps when he hears that song.

Barnes & Noble.com: So do you think you came through this whole experience stronger than you were when it began?

KM: I remember saying to someone in the middle of it, "I have this sense that I am walking through some fire. It's searing away extraneous parts of me, but what's left will be some purer form of who I am." I don't live in as much fear as I used to. I'm not afraid of the music business. Life is too damn short. I know what's important, and the tasks are very clear. And everything is in sharp focus, every day with my parents is like one more gift. That's the great paradox of living on this earth, that in the midst of great pain you can have great joy as well. If we didn't have those things we'd just be numb.

Barnes & Noble.com: What are you listening to now that has inspired you or given you ideas about which direction to go in?

KM: Lately, I finished listening to an album by this new contemporary Christian guy named Bebo Norman. He's sort of a well-disguised contemporary Christian; it's not much about dogma. It's just really heartfelt, great singing and writing, framed very simply in a great groove with a lot of acoustic instruments. I got really into that for a while. I've been listening to George Gershwin lately. Listening to "Rhapsody in Blue" a lot, I don't know why. I've been listening to that and the Four Seasons--

Barnes & Noble.com: "Walk Like a Man"?

KM: Vivaldi! Sorry. The Hank Williams box set, THE COMPLETE HANK WILLIAMS, is awesome! The thing that really has struck me about living with the Hank Williams music is that he was the first rock 'n' roll star. It took me until now to really realize that: the edge in his voice, the intense emotion in his singing, the tragic life he lived, and how that was reflected in his music -- but also the blues and that sassy kind of hip, edgy sense of humor that was in his songs. He was like the first rock 'n' roll star. I'd heard his records, but I'd never really lived with his body of work like that. One day the light bulb just went on -- like, "Oh, now I get it!" The pinhead discovers music!

David McGee