Kathy Mattea
Coal (Captain Potato)
ESSENTIAL "Black Lung/Coal"
The intent of Kathy Mattea's new release is to limn autobiography and pay tribute to her "people and place," as she puts it, with songs that portray her upbringing in West Virginia - the hardships, dangers, and hardscrabble existence of working the mines. After Mattea collected coal-themed songs and ruminated over what to do with them for years, the 2006 Sago mining disaster inspired her to realize this project. Abetted by the production and playing of Marty Stuart and a small string band, the onetime country star gives a bluegrass cast to "The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore" and "Blue Diamond Mines"; an acoustic country treatment to "Green Rolling Hills" and Darrell Scott's "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive"; and sings delicate, trad folk on "Red-Winged Blackbird" and "Coming of the Roads." Mattea manages to infuse the almost unremitting darkness of these songs with a solemn beauty, nowhere more so than on the album's culmination, a riveting, a cappella rendition of Hazel Dickens's "Black Lung," which leads into a gorgeous, mournful instrumental coda penned by Stuart. [Stuart Munro]
Kathy Mattea performs at Club Passim tonight at 8. Tickets are $30 at 617-492-7679 or clubpassim.org.
