"TIME" IS ON HER SIDE
By DAVE SCHEIBER
Published Aug. 8, 1991
By DAVE SCHEIBER
Published Aug. 8, 1991
I remember that the sun had just risen above the Houston horizon. I was on my way to an assignment, barreling along some endless stretch of Texas asphalt when the song came on the rent-a-car radio. In an instant, I forgot about counting the mile markers and found myself pleasantly lost in the warm, powerful voice of country singer Kathy Mattea and one of the most poignant love songs ever to come out of Nashville or any other place, for that matter.
If you haven't heard it by now, Where've You Been, co-written by Mattea's husband Jon Vezner and Don Henry, tells the story of a married couple who stay in love through the decades, only to be separated in old age on different floors of a hospital. The wife no longer talks or acknowledges anyone, until one day her ailing husband is wheeled into her room. The chorus, which Mattea sings so movingly throughout the song in her soaring alto, hits a real nerve at the end, as the wife says: "Where've you been, I've looked for you forever and a day / Where've you been, I'm just not myself when you're away."
As I listened to the tune for the first time that morning in 1990, I thought about my grandparents, who spent their final years in a nursing home, and how their feelings for each other sustained them to the end. And I thought about how great it was that a song so different, so deep, so against-the-grain of the slick country music establishment could find its way to the air waves.
Of course, Where've You Been has done a whole lot more than that. This past year, it earned Mattea a Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance by a female artist, got her husband and co-writer Henry a Grammy for Best Country Song, helped her 1989 Willow in the Wind album go gold with sales exceeding 500,000 – and solidified Mattea's status as one of the top country singers in the business.
In fact, at the Country Music Association's nationally televised awards ceremony in October, Mattea won her second consecutive Female Vocalist of the Year honor, and was the only woman nominated in the CMA's Entertainer of the Year category. Now, she's moved from opening act to headliner, with a highly successful national tour (which arrives Thursday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater) and profiles in publications as diverse as People Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
"The tour this year, especially so far this summer, has been some of the most fun I've ever had singing live," Mattea said this week from California. "The band is playing well, and we are really getting along well. . . . I'm having a blast!"
It's the culmination of a decade of hard work and risk-taking by the 31-year-old West Virginia native, who has seen six of her songs hit No. 1 on the charts, and recently released her seventh album, Time Passes By. Her first studio album since 1989, the recording is a wonderful collection of stirring and intelligent songs Mattea picked because they reflected her personal taste, not with an ear to how they might be received by Nashville.
Time Passes By celebrates her many musical influences, from bluegrass of West Virginia to folk music of Scotland, where she traveled last year to record with heralded Scottish singer/songwriter Dougie MacLean.
"I decided that there was a real honesty about Dougie's music that inspired me a lot," Mattea said. "And that was what I wanted to strive for. I didn't want to worry about making a commercial album, or an album that was like any other album I'd ever made."
Clearly her least commercial effort, Time Passes By has nonetheless received glowing praise across the board, with highlights including the swirling title song (a Top Five hit); the catchy Whole Lotta Holes, written by Vezner and Henry with harmonies by folk trio The Roches; the bittersweet lament What Could Have Been, with harmony by Emmylou Harris; Quarter Moon, a haunting song about homelessness by newcomer Bob Millard; and a beautiful version of Grammy Song of the Year From A Distance that is more pure and pleasing than Bette Midler's.
But perhaps more than anything, the significance of Mattea's new album is what it says about her as an artist and a person. Coming off the immense success of the last two years, Mattea easily could have played it safe and stayed within Nashville's accepted parameters. By cutting Time Passes By, she was making a bold statement about refusing to stagnate or make make money simply for the sake of making more money. And she was willing to take the ultimate career gamble – that the same country establishment that embraced her might just as quickly discard her.
But Mattea followed her instincts – as well as the message from one of her No. 1 songs in '89, Come from the Heart ("You've got to sing like you don't need the money / Love like you'll never get hurt / You've got to dance like nobody's watching / It's got to come from the heart if you want it to work."
The realization hit her last year after returning from Scotland. Having just expanded her musical vistas on such a meaningful visit, Mattea found herself suddenly trying to decide which rhinestone outfit to wear on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. That's when she knew she had to make a choice in her musical direction.
"I felt in danger of all the outside trappings of success becoming more important than being connected to the music," she said.
Taking risks is nothing new to Mattea. That's how she got to Nashville in the first place. A coal miner's granddaughter, Mattea grew up in Cross Lanes, W Va., with two brothers, a father who worked in a chemical plant and a mother who worked at home. In high school, she was an advanced placement student in math and science, and then went off to the West Virginia University. She began singing in a bluegrass band on the side, and after two years of college – at age 19 – dropped out to pursue a dream as a singer-songwriter.
She had no connections or friends in Nashville, but she went anyway: supporting herself as $90-a-week tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame, a part-time secretary and waitress.
"I think a lot of my decision to move to Nashville had to do with my youth," she said. "I figured I had plenty of time to have an adventure. I also have always had this image of life as a blank canvas, and when I die, I want mine to be as full as possible."
Mattea soon began filling her time as a demo-tape singer for aspiring songwriters. That's how she finally was discovered, landing a recording deal with Mercury Records. It was 1983, and after five years in Nashville, she had cut her first album, Kathy Mattea.
In 1985, her rich voice with superb range and shading would become even better known with the release of Walk the Way the Wind Blows and the single of Nanci Griffith's song Love at the Five and Dime. In 1987, she was on a roll with Untasted Honey, featuring No. 1 hits Goin' Gone and Eighteen Wheels and A Dozen Roses.
But 1988 marked a big moment of another kind. On Valentine's Day of that year, she married Vezner. She had lived for a time above a music publisher, where Vezner worked as a writer. One day, when her car wouldn't start, Vezner brought his jumper cables to the rescue. That led to a date, and though each proclaimed they did not want a serious relationship, one thing led to another, and they've been together ever since.
Ironically, Mattea initially was reluctant to record her husband's ballad Where've You Been. He had based the song on a true story about his grandparents. "I felt so vulnerable for Jon," she said. "I knew what that moment had meant in his life. Before he had even thought of writing a song about it, I couldn't bear the thought of exposing him to some insensitive critic. I didn't want to be responsible for that."
But one night, Mattea watched Vezner perform the song at a writers' night. The reaction was overwhelming. Many people in the audience cried or were openly emotional. "I saw the power of the song," she said, "and at that moment, I felt it was a song people should hear."
For Mattea and Vezner, these are the best of times. "Jon and I have shared our biggest success together," she said. "I think it was a wonderful synergy, and we both are very thankful to have helped bring the best out in each other. But success has its struggles, too: accepting it, figuring out what to do next, helping each other grow and not just be the Where've You Been duo for the rest of our careers has been a challenge. We've influenced each other, and I see our tastes and goals moving together more and more."
Mattea's immediate goals include taking care of a vocal cord inflammation, which means resting her voice between her energetic and varied concerts as much as possible – doctor's orders. But there are many other, deeper things she reaches for in her life.
"I try to live in the here and now as much as possible," she said. "I try to be as honest as I can be every day. I try to focus on the positive side of life, to see the reasons to go on and to keep inspired, and I try to keep in close touch with God's voice, and trust it.
"My goal, as Justice Thurgood Marshall said, is to create a "life well-lived.' "
AT A GLANCE
Kathy Mattea in concert, with Vince Gill opening, at 8 p.m. Thursday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Tickets are $24. Call 791-7400
(Pinellas) or 854-1538 (Hillsborough).
If you haven't heard it by now, Where've You Been, co-written by Mattea's husband Jon Vezner and Don Henry, tells the story of a married couple who stay in love through the decades, only to be separated in old age on different floors of a hospital. The wife no longer talks or acknowledges anyone, until one day her ailing husband is wheeled into her room. The chorus, which Mattea sings so movingly throughout the song in her soaring alto, hits a real nerve at the end, as the wife says: "Where've you been, I've looked for you forever and a day / Where've you been, I'm just not myself when you're away."
As I listened to the tune for the first time that morning in 1990, I thought about my grandparents, who spent their final years in a nursing home, and how their feelings for each other sustained them to the end. And I thought about how great it was that a song so different, so deep, so against-the-grain of the slick country music establishment could find its way to the air waves.
Of course, Where've You Been has done a whole lot more than that. This past year, it earned Mattea a Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance by a female artist, got her husband and co-writer Henry a Grammy for Best Country Song, helped her 1989 Willow in the Wind album go gold with sales exceeding 500,000 – and solidified Mattea's status as one of the top country singers in the business.
In fact, at the Country Music Association's nationally televised awards ceremony in October, Mattea won her second consecutive Female Vocalist of the Year honor, and was the only woman nominated in the CMA's Entertainer of the Year category. Now, she's moved from opening act to headliner, with a highly successful national tour (which arrives Thursday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater) and profiles in publications as diverse as People Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
"The tour this year, especially so far this summer, has been some of the most fun I've ever had singing live," Mattea said this week from California. "The band is playing well, and we are really getting along well. . . . I'm having a blast!"
It's the culmination of a decade of hard work and risk-taking by the 31-year-old West Virginia native, who has seen six of her songs hit No. 1 on the charts, and recently released her seventh album, Time Passes By. Her first studio album since 1989, the recording is a wonderful collection of stirring and intelligent songs Mattea picked because they reflected her personal taste, not with an ear to how they might be received by Nashville.
Time Passes By celebrates her many musical influences, from bluegrass of West Virginia to folk music of Scotland, where she traveled last year to record with heralded Scottish singer/songwriter Dougie MacLean.
"I decided that there was a real honesty about Dougie's music that inspired me a lot," Mattea said. "And that was what I wanted to strive for. I didn't want to worry about making a commercial album, or an album that was like any other album I'd ever made."
Clearly her least commercial effort, Time Passes By has nonetheless received glowing praise across the board, with highlights including the swirling title song (a Top Five hit); the catchy Whole Lotta Holes, written by Vezner and Henry with harmonies by folk trio The Roches; the bittersweet lament What Could Have Been, with harmony by Emmylou Harris; Quarter Moon, a haunting song about homelessness by newcomer Bob Millard; and a beautiful version of Grammy Song of the Year From A Distance that is more pure and pleasing than Bette Midler's.
But perhaps more than anything, the significance of Mattea's new album is what it says about her as an artist and a person. Coming off the immense success of the last two years, Mattea easily could have played it safe and stayed within Nashville's accepted parameters. By cutting Time Passes By, she was making a bold statement about refusing to stagnate or make make money simply for the sake of making more money. And she was willing to take the ultimate career gamble – that the same country establishment that embraced her might just as quickly discard her.
But Mattea followed her instincts – as well as the message from one of her No. 1 songs in '89, Come from the Heart ("You've got to sing like you don't need the money / Love like you'll never get hurt / You've got to dance like nobody's watching / It's got to come from the heart if you want it to work."
The realization hit her last year after returning from Scotland. Having just expanded her musical vistas on such a meaningful visit, Mattea found herself suddenly trying to decide which rhinestone outfit to wear on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. That's when she knew she had to make a choice in her musical direction.
"I felt in danger of all the outside trappings of success becoming more important than being connected to the music," she said.
Taking risks is nothing new to Mattea. That's how she got to Nashville in the first place. A coal miner's granddaughter, Mattea grew up in Cross Lanes, W Va., with two brothers, a father who worked in a chemical plant and a mother who worked at home. In high school, she was an advanced placement student in math and science, and then went off to the West Virginia University. She began singing in a bluegrass band on the side, and after two years of college – at age 19 – dropped out to pursue a dream as a singer-songwriter.
She had no connections or friends in Nashville, but she went anyway: supporting herself as $90-a-week tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame, a part-time secretary and waitress.
"I think a lot of my decision to move to Nashville had to do with my youth," she said. "I figured I had plenty of time to have an adventure. I also have always had this image of life as a blank canvas, and when I die, I want mine to be as full as possible."
Mattea soon began filling her time as a demo-tape singer for aspiring songwriters. That's how she finally was discovered, landing a recording deal with Mercury Records. It was 1983, and after five years in Nashville, she had cut her first album, Kathy Mattea.
In 1985, her rich voice with superb range and shading would become even better known with the release of Walk the Way the Wind Blows and the single of Nanci Griffith's song Love at the Five and Dime. In 1987, she was on a roll with Untasted Honey, featuring No. 1 hits Goin' Gone and Eighteen Wheels and A Dozen Roses.
But 1988 marked a big moment of another kind. On Valentine's Day of that year, she married Vezner. She had lived for a time above a music publisher, where Vezner worked as a writer. One day, when her car wouldn't start, Vezner brought his jumper cables to the rescue. That led to a date, and though each proclaimed they did not want a serious relationship, one thing led to another, and they've been together ever since.
Ironically, Mattea initially was reluctant to record her husband's ballad Where've You Been. He had based the song on a true story about his grandparents. "I felt so vulnerable for Jon," she said. "I knew what that moment had meant in his life. Before he had even thought of writing a song about it, I couldn't bear the thought of exposing him to some insensitive critic. I didn't want to be responsible for that."
But one night, Mattea watched Vezner perform the song at a writers' night. The reaction was overwhelming. Many people in the audience cried or were openly emotional. "I saw the power of the song," she said, "and at that moment, I felt it was a song people should hear."
For Mattea and Vezner, these are the best of times. "Jon and I have shared our biggest success together," she said. "I think it was a wonderful synergy, and we both are very thankful to have helped bring the best out in each other. But success has its struggles, too: accepting it, figuring out what to do next, helping each other grow and not just be the Where've You Been duo for the rest of our careers has been a challenge. We've influenced each other, and I see our tastes and goals moving together more and more."
Mattea's immediate goals include taking care of a vocal cord inflammation, which means resting her voice between her energetic and varied concerts as much as possible – doctor's orders. But there are many other, deeper things she reaches for in her life.
"I try to live in the here and now as much as possible," she said. "I try to be as honest as I can be every day. I try to focus on the positive side of life, to see the reasons to go on and to keep inspired, and I try to keep in close touch with God's voice, and trust it.
"My goal, as Justice Thurgood Marshall said, is to create a "life well-lived.' "
AT A GLANCE
Kathy Mattea in concert, with Vince Gill opening, at 8 p.m. Thursday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Tickets are $24. Call 791-7400
(Pinellas) or 854-1538 (Hillsborough).