Kathy Mattea: Coal

By Steve Morley

One of the best known songs about coal mines is Jimmy Dean’s 1961 pop chart-topper “Big Bad John,” in which a burly hero dies to save his fellow miners during a cave-in. The topic turned up later in the decade in hits like Lee Dorsey’s oddly upbeat “Working in a Coal Mine” and The Bee Gees’ “New York Mining Disaster 1941.” But the coal songs that cut the deepest come from the folk and country traditions - songs originating from, or written specifically about, America’s Appalachian Mountain region where mining has long been a way of life. On her latest album, Coal, Kathy Mattea collects nearly a dozen such songs to teach an affecting history lesson about coal mining’s cost, both human and environmental. Mattea, a native West Virginian whose male relatives all worked in the mines, draws not only from her own experience but also from her work as an environmental activist.

“The Coming of the Roads” explores the complicated social problems that can result from tampering with nature. In it, Mattea’s female protagonist laments the passageways that spoil her woodland home and grant her husband access to the taverns, where he abandons his fight against commercial developers. “Green Rolling Hills” features a different but equally painful scenario, as an out-of-work miner is forced to leave his lush but coal-depleted home.

The inherent dangers of mining turn up in tracks like “Coal Tattoo” and the harrowing “Black Lung,” an a cappella dirge about the respiratory disease frighteningly common to miners. Mattea’s unaffected vocals never resort to melodramatics, yet they encompass melancholy, anger and steely resolve―sometimes all in the same song. Her believable delivery captures the injustice, tragedy and pride known by miners and their kin, and effectively translates the experience for listeners who’ve never set foot in hill country.

Of course, much of the credit is due to the composers featured here, whose rustic mountain-style poetry rings with striking imagery. On “Red-Winged Blackbird,” the blood-red-and-coal-black color scheme is used as a sobering symbol of lives lost in the mines, while Merle Travis’ chilling “Dark as a Dungeon” is simply folk art at its finest. (“Well, I hope when I’m gone and the ages shall roll/ My body will blacken and turn into coal/ Then I’ll look from the door of my heavenly home/ And pity the miner digging my bones.”)

Mattea found a perfect partner in music historian Marty Stuart, who anchors a team of musicians well-versed in the pure, well-weathered sound of Appalachian music. Both Mattea and Stuart scored high-charting country hits in the late ‘80s and early‘90s before pursuing more personal musical paths that, like this album, have increasingly veered away from country’s mainstream. That’s an important distinction to make when recommending Coal, which unearths a rich vein of American music and history but, for some, may prove to be a load too heavy to bear.

Audio Clips

"The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore"

"Blue Diamond Mines"

"Red-Winged Blackbird"

"Lawrence Jones"