Mattea Digs Deep For Country Roots

Two-time Country Music Association female vocalist of the year Kathy Mattea made her last CD, “Walking Away a Winner,” with an eye on the marketplace. She has recorded her new one, “Love Travels,” by throwing caution to the wind.

“I believe that music is music,” Mattea says. “Scottish and Celtic music are at the roots of modern country music. This album is very much me. It’s part of my musical progression through the years. It’s all about a musical journey.

“I’m so lucky to have a very loyal following of people who’ve stayed with me through all of my eclectic restlessness. They always want to see what I am going to do next. As I began to delve deeper into what I was feeling, I realized that I was going to alienate those people if I didn’t make the record from a deeper place.”

The songwriters on this CD range from alternative-country Gillian Welch and Jim Lauderdale to a former mainstream performer, Lionel Cartwright, to Mattea’s husband Jon Vezner and Don Henry, who with Vezner, co-wrote the Mattea classic “Where’ve You Been?”

A ballad by contemporary folk singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler, “Further and Further Away” - sung by Mattea and Suzy Bogguss - describes the feeling of gradually learning that one’s parents aren’t the invincible heroes you envisioned them as being as a child.

“I cried when I heard that song,” Mattea says. “I still have my parents with me, and so does my husband. So there is this sense of dread that creeps in as you get older and realize that they’re not going to be around forever. The song is so emotional, and Suzy’s voice has a reedy quality that cuts through everything.”

The Welch song “Patiently Waiting” offers a message that seems to run counter to its title, saying basically that people who know what they want should go after it rather than wait around.

“Anytime you can impart that message and encourage people to really live their lives, you should do it,” Mattea says. “I’ve always said that life is like a blank canvas, and at the end you don’t want to have nothing on it.”

Rio’s new spin on reality

Diamond Rio’s explosive and surreal “It’s All In Your Head” - whose video features award-winning actor Martin Sheen and his son Ramon Estevez - is based on reality, of sorts.

Reese Wilson says he and co-writers Tony Martin and Van Stephenson “just started talking about things one day and came up with some ‘different’ ideas about people and how they think about things.

“Tony’s grandfather seriously believed that we never walked on the moon, and Tony always found that interesting. We started from that discussion and it took off from there.”

Stephenson, a member of the band BlackHawk, notes that a close listen to the song’s words will disclose that “we are not criticizing anybody. It could be all in your head.”

Bogguss sings Peters’ praises

The kickoff song on Suzy Bogguss’ “Give Me Some Wheels” is another traffic song, “Waiting For the Light to Turn Green,” which Bogguss co-wrote with Gretchen Peters.

Bogguss says she and Peters used to play some of the same places out West before coming to Nashville and that she admires Peters as an opposite, because of her “ability to bring out the angry side of things.”

“I have a lot of girl-next-door in me, that cheerleader kind of thing, and there are people I idolize for their ability to cut to the harder things in life,” she says. “Gretchen’s one of ‘em, and it’s good for me, because I need that side of me to let off the steam sometimes.”