Kathy Mattea

Kathy Mattea is an American country and bluegrass singer from South Charleston, West Virginia. Born Kathleen Alice Mattea in 1959, she grows up in Cross Lanes and graduates from Nitro High School nearby. Her work spans contemporary country, country, country pop and folk, and she records with The Red Hots. She is associated with Captain Potato Records.

Early career

Mattea starts performing while at college, joining the bluegrass band Pennsboro in 1976. Two years later she leaves school and moves to Nashville. There she works as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame, provides backing vocals for Bobby Goldsboro, and sings demos for Nashville songwriters and publishers, including Byron Hill. Hill introduces her to Frank Jones, then head of Mercury Records, who signs her to her first record deal in 1983.

Chart success and major recordings

She records professionally from 1984 and charts more than 30 singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Four of those singles reach number one: “Goin’ Gone”, “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses”, “Come from the Heart” and “Burnin’ Old Memories”. A further 12 singles reach the top ten.

Her third album, Walk the Way the Wind Blows from 1986, becomes her breakthrough in both critical and commercial terms. It includes her first major hit, a cover of Nanci Griffith’s “Love at the Five and Dime”, which reaches number three and also draws attention to Griffith as a songwriter. The same album also produces “Walk the Way the Wind Blows”, “You’re the Power” and “Train of Memories”, all top ten hits.

Among her other notable singles are “She Came From Fort Worth”, “Lonesome Standard Time”, “Walking Away a Winner”, “Nobody’s Gonna Rain on Our Parade”, “Maybe She’s Human” and “455 Rocket”. “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses” becomes the first single by a solo female artist to spend multiple weeks at number one on the Billboard country singles chart since Dolly Parton’s “You’re the Only One”.

Awards and recognition

Mattea wins two Grammy Awards. She receives the first in 1990 for “Where’ve You Been”, a song co-written by her husband Jon Vezner and Don Henry, which reaches number two on the country chart. She wins a second Grammy in 1993 for her Christmas album Good News. That album’s first single, “Mary, Did You Know?”, is later recorded by Kenny Rogers with Wynonna and by Reba McEntire.

She also wins the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year award more than once, on the strength of “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses” and “Where’ve You Been”. Her album Coal, issued on her own label, is a collection of songs about mining and receives a Grammy nomination.

Later work, labels and collaborations

After her Mercury period, Mattea moves to MCA and releases The Innocent Years in 2000, a ballad-heavy album dedicated to her ailing father. She later turns to Narada to explore Celtic folk influences, debuting there in 2002 with Roses. Before leaving the label, she also releases Right Out Of Nowhere, which includes a cover of a Rolling Stones song. In 2018 she releases Pretty Bird independently, with Tim O’Brien as producer.

Activism and performance

Mattea takes part in the multi-artist single “Voices That Care”, created to raise money for allied troops in the Gulf War, alongside artists including Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers and Randy Travis. She is also heavily involved in HIV/AIDS-related charities from the early 1990s and is often credited with helping country music address the AIDS epidemic. She performs with Mary Chapin Carpenter on VH1’s first Save The Music concert, which also features Bette Midler.

She continues to tour and perform, with a strong fan following known as the Matteaheads.