Kathy Mattea – Hello…My Name is Coal

Calling Me Home - Kathy MatteaSugar Hill Records has launched the latest video from Kathy Mattea’s current album Calling Me Home (Sugar Hill SUG-CD-4085).

Songwriters Larry Cordle and Jenee Fleenor composed the song, Builder Levy, James Minchin and David McClister provided the iconic photographs, and filmmaker Becky Fluke produced the impressive video.

Four years ago, Mattea, one of the best country-pop song interpreters of her generation, surprised everyone with an album of old-time Appalachian mining songs called Coal.

For Calling Me Home Mattea has once again dug deep into her Appalachian heritage and recorded some of the best ecological songs to come out of the mountains of the region.

The dozen songs that make up Calling Me Home include Jean Ritchie’s West Virginia Mine Disaster, Black Waters and Now Is the Cool of the Day;  the title track and Agate Hill from Alice Gerrard; Bill Cooley’s Requiem for a Mountain; A Far Cry from Michael Dowling and Janet Dowling; and Gone, Gonna Rise Again from Si Kahn.

The Wood Thrush’s Song and The Maple’s Lament from Laurie Lewis enhance the collection.

The Calling Me Home Tour resumes on February 23 with an appearance in New Hampshire and another at the Lincoln Center, New York City, on February 27.  There are more dates throughout April. Look for a show in your area on the full tour schedule.

 

Mattea continues to happily accept invitations to speak to a variety of audiences on topics dear to her heart. In April she presents the keynote address to the West Virginia Enhanced 9-1-1 Council Training Conference, Blennerhasset Hotel, Parkersburg, West Virginia [April 2] and the Health Science Symposium “Healing Power of the Arts” at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania [April 25].

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About the Author

Richard Thompson

Richard F. Thompson is a long-standing free-lance writer specialising in bluegrass music topics. A two-time Editor of British Bluegrass News, he has been seriously interested in bluegrass music since about 1970. As well as contributing to that magazine, he has, in the past 30 plus years, had articles published by Country Music World, International Country Music News, Country Music People, Bluegrass Unlimited, MoonShiner (the Japanese bluegrass music journal) and Bluegrass Europe. He wrote the annotated series I'm On My Way Back To Old Kentucky, a daily memorial to Bill Monroe that culminated with an acknowledgement of what would have been his 100th birthday, on September 13, 2011.