Join Kathy Mattea for an evening of stories and songs from the coal-mining culture of her native Appalachia featured on her new release “Coal,” along with a sampling of her best-loved songs, such as “18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses,” “Goin’ Gone.”

Kathy Mattea, the beloved, Grammy-winning singer of such classics as “18 Wheels and A Dozen Roses,” “Where’ve You Been,” and many other hits says that her new album offered her a “re-education” in singing.  That album, COAL, is a re-education for the listener as well, a record that reshapes the way we think about music, reminding us of why we love it so much in the first place.

The songs on COAL are more than just mining songs.  Mattea says she wanted to pay tribute to “my place and my people” on a record that is as much a textured novel as it is an album.  Raised near Charleston, West Virginia, her mining heritage is thick: both her parents grew up in coal camps, both her grandfathers were miners, her mother worked for the local UMWA.  Her father was saved from the mines by an uncle who paid his way through college.  “It’s a coming together of a lot of different threads in my life,” Mattea says.  

Mattea has been one of country's most honored female singer-songwriters, colling two Grammys, six CMA award and four ACM awards. She has had more than a dozen top ten hits and several number one country hits.

http://www.mattea.com