Coal (Kathy Mattea album)

Background

Mattea's decision to make an album about this topic was influenced by the fact that both of her grandfathers were miners, as well as by the Sago Mine disaster in 2006, which, when it occurred, reminded Mattea of the Farmington Mine disaster that had occurred when she was nine years old. She has said that she was expecting a set of stories in the songs she covered on this album, but instead found a connection to her miner ancestors. Her deep interest in this topic was also noted by the album's producer, Marty Stuart, as when they were recording the a cappella song "Black Lung". Stuart said it would be like "trying to repaint the 'Mona Lisa'", in that it requires authentic commitment to the task. Mattea also stated that it was so difficult for her to learn the song that it took her six months to do so. Nevertheless, the first recording of Mattea's version of the song ended up being kept after it made the recording engineer, whose father had died of black lung disease, cry. Stuart reacted by telling Mattea that this was a sign she was performing the song right.

Critical reception

The album received several favorable reviews, including a perfect five stars from About.com's Scott Sexton, who wrote that Mattea brings the album's songs to life and that "you can actually imagine all of these stories in your mind while she is singing." In a more mixed review, Grant Alden wrote in No Depression that Coal was "a complicated conversation, one she seeks gently to engage all of us in," and praised her cover of “Red-Winged Black Bird” as the album's best song. He also criticized her treatment of "Coming of the Roads" as "prosaic" and wrote that she added nothing to the Merle Travis song "Dark as a Dungeon".

In 2009, Country Universe named Coal #5 on their "The 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade."

Commercial performance

Coal topped the Bluegrass Albums Chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Personnel