Kathy was nominated for country singer of the year in 1990, gaining her much-deserved recognition, and this album is a taste of all of her best. From the first cut, a rendition of Nancy Griffith's
Love at the Five and Dime, she demonstrates her ability to make a song her own. This album also includes
Walk the Way the Wind Blows,
Train of Memories and
18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses. A must for all long time Kathy Mattea fans and new converts.
A Collection of Hits is the first greatest hits compilation released by American country music artist Kathy Mattea. It was released in 1990 on Mercury Records and has been certified platinum by the RIAA. The album includes eight of her previous singles, as well as one newly recorded track ("A Few Good Things Remain"), and an album cut from 1987's Untasted Honey, the Tim O'Brien duet "The Battle Hymn of Love". Both of these songs were released as singles in 1990, and both reached #9 on the Billboard country charts.
Chart performance
References
*Allmusic (see infobox)
Category:1990 compilation albums
Category:Greatest hits albums
Category:Kathy Mattea albums
Category:Albums produced by Allen Reynolds
Category:Mercury Records compilation albums
This text has been derived from A Collection of Hits on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0Artist/Band Information
Kathleen Alice (Kathy) Mattea (born June 21, 1959, in South Charleston, West Virginia) is an American country music and bluegrass performer who often brings folk, Celtic and traditional country sounds to her music. Active since 1983 as a recording artist, she has recorded seventeen albums and has charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. This total includes the number one hits "Goin' Gone", "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses", "Come From the Heart" and "Burnin' Old Memories", as well as twelve additional Top Ten singles.
Life & career
Mattea was born in South Charleston, West Virginia, because it had the nearest hospital to her parents' home in Cross Lanes, where she grew up, graduating from nearby Nitro High School. She discovered her love of singing at Girl Scout camp. In 1976, while attending West Virginia University, she joined the bluegrass band Pennsboro, and two years later dropped out of school to move to Nashville. She worked as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame, did backup vocal work for Bobby Goldsboro, and sang demos for several Nashville songwriters and publishers including Nashville songwriter/producer Byron Hill who brought her to the attention of Frank Jones (then head of Mercury Records), who signed her to her first record deal in 1983.
Mattea's third album, 1986's folky Walk the Way the Wind Blows, proved to be her breakthrough both critically and commercially. Her cover of Nanci Griffith's "Love at the Five and Dime" was her first major hit, reaching #3 (and in addition, earned Griffith notice as a songwriter), and the album produced three other top ten songs: "Walk the Way the Wind Blows" (#10), "You're the Power"(#5), and "Train of Memories" (#6). "Love at the Five and Dime" also drew attention because well-known country singer Don Williams sang harmony vocals on the track.
Further hit songs include her first #1, "Goin' Gone"; the truck-driving song "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses" (1988); "Come From the Heart" and "Burnin' Old Memories" (both #1 hits in 1989); "She Came From Fort Worth" (1990); "Lonesome Standard Time" (1992); "Walking Away a Winner" (1994); "Nobody's Gonna Rain on Our Parade" (1994); "Maybe She's Human" (1994); and "455 Rocket" (1997, written by Gillian Welch). "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses" in late May 1988, became the first single by a solo female to spend multiple weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard country singles chart since Dolly Parton's "You're the Only One" in August 1979; both singles were on top of that chart for two weeks.
The heartrending "Where've You Been," which Mattea's husband Jon Vezner co-wrote with singer/songwriter Don Henry, reached #10 on the country chart and won her a 1990 Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal. Mattea is a repeat winner of the County Music Associations Female Vocalist of the Year, which she won on the success of "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses" and "Where've You Been."
Mattea won another Grammy in 1993 for her gospel-oriented Christmas album, Good News. Her first single from the album, "Mary, Did You Know?," went on to be covered by Kenny Rogers with Wynonna Judd, as well as Reba McEntire.
In 1994, Mattea collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Alison Krauss, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. Also on that album, Mattea teamed up with Jackson Browne to contribute "Rock Me on the Water".
Mattea subsequently moved to MCA Nashville and, in 2000, released the ballad-heavy The Innocent Years, a heartfelt tribute to her ailing father. Wanting to explore her taste for Celtic folk, Mattea hopped labels to Narada, for whom she debuted in 2002 with the eclectic Roses.
With her social activism and her taste for songs with introspective lyrics, it has been often said that Mattea owes as much to the traditions of folk music as mainstream country.
Her 2008 release, Coal, combined her social activism with songs about coal-mining. It debuted at #64 on the country albums chart.
Though her recent work has failed to make the country charts, Mattea continued to enjoy a strong following throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s; her albums are critically well-received, and she continues to tour and perform. She continues to have strong support from a very active fan club, whose members refer to themselves as Matteaheads.
Social activism
In 1991, Mattea took part in Voices That Care, a multi-artist project that featured other top names in music for a one-off single to raise money for the allied troops in the Gulf War. The project included Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, and introduced Celine Dion to the American audience.
She has also been heavily involved in HIV/AIDS-related charities, beginning in the early 1990s, and is often credited with leading the country music community, commonly regarded as the last segment of the entertainment industry to address the AIDS pandemic, to finally do so.
She performed with Mary Chapin Carpenter on VH1's very first Save The Music concert, which also starred Bette Midler.
Mattea currently travels the country presenting Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and speaking to crowds about the importance of fighting global warming and the environmental and physical devastation of coal mining.
Discography
Further reading
* Millard, Bob. (1998). "Kathy Mattea". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pages 329–330.
References
This text has been derived from Kathy Mattea on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0
