072: Kathy Mattea

On Episode 72, I’m joined by country music singer Kathy Mattea. We sat in the green room of Cactus Theater a few weeks back for a nice conversation about her early career, rise up the country music charts, and her latest albums and reinvention as a more rootsy folk singer.

Interview Transcript

Note: Transcripts aren’t always accurate since they are computer automated and haven’t been edited for spelling, grammar, etc.

Thomas Mooney 0:02

Hey everyone, welcome to episode number 72 of new slang. I'm Thomas Mooney. And on this week's episode, I am joined by country music singer, Kathy Mattea. This one right here was really, really fun to do. I know, I probably say that every time on all these. But this one was super fun because it was kind of like just going back in history going back in time. And talking to Kathy about, you know, her career. She was super nice and generous with their time. It's one of those things where a lot of times people will they don't necessarily want to talk about their old material. They want to talk about what's what's on the horizon for them, their new material. But I was super happy that that Kathy was so open to talk about her career at large. You know, I kind of say it in the podcast, but I'll say it again here. So many of her biggest hits, you know, they're they're really just they're touchstones in people's lives. You know, it's like 18 year olds and, and a dozen roses. And she came from Fort Worth and love the Five and Dime walking away a winner, you know, all these songs. They, they're, they're a part of people's lives. And you really can't tell the story of country music without mentioning Kathy. So it's kind of surreal, asking her all these questions about the songs and how they grew to be hers and how they have become a part of other people's lives. We really don't talk a whole lot about new material, but we we do. Get into it a little bit. We mentioned the album Cole. That was, I guess, an album that came out around 10 years ago, I'd suggest checking that out. It's super rootsy as is her last album Pretty bird that came out last year. You know, it's one of those things her career has been so long. That she's kind of has has morphed into a different kind of song grad or not necessarily songwriter because she's not writing so many songs, but a different kind of artist. And yeah, anyway, I know I sound like a broken record. But share new slang with all your friends and family and give it a five star rating on iTunes. Write a little review. It'll take like five seconds to do so. subscribe to the podcast if you haven't. Follow me on social media as well. That's at underscore new slang on Twitter. It'll be where you can find other things I've written and whatnot. So yeah, anyways, here is this interview with Kathy Matteo.

So I guess like where I was wanting to start with was, you know, like, so many of the songs in your catalogue? The they, for somebody like me here, like somebody a fan in general, you can't really tell your own story without having a place with you know, a lot of the songs like 18 you know what I mean? Like, on a dozen rows, 18 wheels on a dozen roses are like, you know, she came from Fort Worth. These places are markers for a lot of people and in their lives. For you like where do you remember the first time like, You ever been like you've been approached with a song specifically that Yeah,

Kathy Mattea 3:35

like what is storage for almost every song I can remember almost every especially the big ones.

Unknown Speaker 3:41

I remember the first time I heard all

Unknown Speaker 3:46

18 wheels

Kathy Mattea 3:49

was written by two brothers, and it's about their uncle and aunt. And their I think the father had a gold watch. So that became the the image that started the whole thing. But he was a long haul trucker. And when he came when he retired, he fixed up a van and took his wife back to all his favorite places in the country. Yeah. And that's the, the refrigerator pigment on the back in the green here in the green room. And so they wrote this song and and I had discovered I knew their publisher. And he was just had a wonderful sense about science. And he was visiting with him one day and he said, I'm starting to send, you know, certain people just want me to send them tapes of different writers composite cassette tapes, you know, and I said, Oh, put me on that list. So one day, something from Paul and Jean Nelson comes in the mail and I pull it out and I start listening to it. And it was the third I'll never forget it was the third song on the on the cassette. I was like wow, I love this. Like I just remember the chorus going by and just feeling sucked in. And so I played it for Alan Reynolds, who's was my longtime producer, and he He said, Oh, I love this palette. I said, Yeah. Isn't that a great song? Who do you think should do that? Thank you. But I think because it was a you know about truck driving for some reason I thought it was gonna be a guy song, but it's really a love story. It's great love story.

Thomas Mooney 5:16

So back in those days, were you always constantly just getting tapes like that? Was that kind of like how you were counting coming across these songs or whether they're more like individual kind of pitches? Oh, where did people

Kathy Mattea 5:28

hear things. I remember being at a folk kind of writers night thing in New York at the bottom line in here and a song and tracking down the writer. And if he wasn't even there if somebody else had sung his song, and I remember, like Nanci, Griffith. We are we had a mutual friend who had told us about each other for years. And he was like, you guys love each other. But she doesn't live here. So I need to tell you when she's coming to town, and I'd always be busy or gone or doing something in one day, I walked in the studio, our own design studio, and I said who's and he never rented it out. It was his own place to work. But the door was closed. One day somebody was in there, said who's working today. He said, Oh, that's Rooney's doing a record on Nanci Griffith. I was like, Nancy krever. And I ran into the control McMaster session, I waited till the playback and I said, Hey, Richard Dobson has told us about each other for years. It's me, it's you. I'm Kathy. And they were recording her version of low with the Five and Dime at that moment. And, and then her publisher pitched it to me later. And, and I, you know, changed my life. That's,

Thomas Mooney 6:34

yeah, that's all right there. Like just the the storytelling imagery. Oh, my God, it's just amazing of how it develops. And you see these ups and downs. And you see, I especially love, like when she does that whole elevator thing, but

Unknown Speaker 6:48

Oh, yeah, she's Yeah,

Thomas Mooney 6:50

she talks about it, like on the live versions, like she'll talk about how that was like the sound of the elevator going. It's those little things, little nuggets like that, that really make songs lived in, you know,

Kathy Mattea 7:03

I've heard so many stories about that song over the years, I had a professor, literary Professor interview me and say, you know, carry that song. It's like an epic movie in three minutes. And I had heard Nancy say, one time, then it was done as an exercise. That was like, take a story you've written and put it into a song. And someone told me even just recently, that she had written a short story. That was that story. And she took that short story and chase it into that song. And it's just, I have to say, you know, it is lived for me. So well, just, I mean, I send up like prayers of gratitude dark every night when I say that,

Thomas Mooney 7:45

right? Whenever that, I guess that's on your third record, right? Around that time, that's whenever you really start gaining a whole lot of steam, like you start getting a whole lot of top 10 hits. Would that record in that moment? Like during that time? Did you feel that transition? Or was it not until later that you realize, like, Oh, this was kind of a turning point.

Kathy Mattea 8:07

Um, well, it was more like I've made records, I've made a couple of records and didn't have a hit. I had some things, you know, kind of putter around on the chart, but nothing that you could call a hit. And so I didn't know if I was ever going to get one and my record company, God bless them. They stayed with me, they were like, No, we believe we think it's going to happen for you, and we're going to stay with you. So they wanted me to cut a couple singles, so that we can get some traction before we just put out another record. And love it. The five and down was the first thing off those sessions. So I noticed immediately the difference that they didn't have to sort of try to convince people to people were clamoring to play that record. I was like, really, it just floated up the charts. Like it had a balloon on it. And I thought, This is what it feels like, like you wait, and then you get the record, do you think it's gonna happen, then that doesn't happen? And you don't know if it will ever happen? Right? So rather than sort of seeing it as Oh, no, I've made it. It's like, one more rung up on the ladder. Okay, I got that. But it This might be the only one some people only have one hit. And so I didn't know. And I never, I never really felt. I never felt felt like I could have perspective on what was going on in my career. till about six months to a year later. I could not tell them when I was in it. What was happening, right.

Thomas Mooney 9:27

I think that's always an interesting part is like, I think it's just human nature in a lot of ways where you, you don't necessarily when you're in the middle of it. It's coming at you so quickly, or it's going it's coming at you so slowly that you don't know which way is up. And then it's only until later you're able to go Oh, actually, that was a good time or that was Yes, exactly.

Kathy Mattea 9:51

I said to my manager one time, okay. So when I'm when I make it to the height of my career, I want to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah and he said Cathy, I think you are at the height of your He said, Well, you just want a Grammy and you're nominated for Entertainer of the Year I was like, Oh, yeah, that's what you never it never feel solid. because everything's so predicated on everybody else's response. And you don't know there's right.

Thomas Mooney 10:17

Going back to like the whole, you know, you're getting pitch songs and tapes and stuff. Yeah. What what's like the one that got

Kathy Mattea 10:25

away, song members went, Okay. I can't even hardly talk about it. I mean, I can't believe I said the title. Sometimes I'll just allude to it. But here's what I've learned. I mean, I recorded the song remembers when and somebody sort of said, well, there's too many ballads on this record, you need to drop one, you should drop that one. So I dropped in, and it was just, you know, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees, right. But by the same token, Don Williams had recorded come from the heart. And then he wasn't sure we want him to do it. So he was gonna release it, or he was gonna, like, take it off his record and not do it. And then he said, No, I do want to do it. So I didn't have that song, had it and then didn't have it. And he put out his record. And nobody ever mentioned it in any other reviews. They just didn't get a good cut on it. And I just waited. I felt like I had like a little thing in my backpack. I wouldn't mention it to anyone, I wouldn't say anything. And when it came time to make my next record, it was the first song I recorded. And went number one, and was Susanna. Clarke's first number one hit and, and so that was kind of a that was like a real thing for her to look from what I understand what I've been told to look guy in the eye and say, I got one. And the other one is, I had someone come out and say who it is. But someone came to me one time and said for 55 rocket, I had it, I let it go. So you realize that, you know, if you try to keep your heart in the right place and do it from your gut, you're gonna miss some and you're gonna win some right,

Thomas Mooney 12:00

that 455 rocket, that's one of those songs where I was looking on Wikipedia earlier. And I guess it was like, a top 20 hit. But I don't know if it's where I was going up or like my parents played it a whole lot more. Had you asked me I would have thought that was like the number one hit of the year because it was a felt like it was always on where ever I was as

Kathy Mattea 12:20

well. That's another thing that you learn is that the numbers really don't mean that I have records that are career records that didn't go to the one and I have number one records that no one remembers. And so you know that that tells you something, but not not the whole story,

Thomas Mooney 12:35

right? Um, also, whenever I was getting all this stuff ready, I'm a I love like old music videos. Like you, you come from an era of these, like, those late 80s, early 90s music videos were a thing that Yeah, they gave us money to make these videos. What was like the most fun musical

Kathy Mattea 12:54

the very last one I did for Mercury, we went to Rome, okay, it was so fun. The song was not a hit. But boy, that video was really everybody was like, I'll work on it for free just to get to go. So you know, a bunch of us went to Italy and spent three days filming and went into these little towns and based out of Rome and and the very This is my big memory from that besides going to this little town and john befriending this guy in the middle of the town square and him taking him to his house for lunch and give him making making homemade ravioli is for him. We we spent three days filming and it was really amazing thing. And then we the very last night we all we had some Italian people on our crew. And then we had people we brought from America. We all had dinner and it was just this great kind of peak experience. And the director was a dear friend of mine, and he brought his kids and you know, it was just great. And we all walk back to our hotel and our hotel is just behind the Spanish Steps. And we've been walking past them every day. But this was like a weekend night. And they were full of people who just hanging out they would go get a gelato and sit on the Spanish Steps and just watch the crowd. Yeah, and there was singing going on. And there was this huge crowd all crowded around these people with guitars and they couldn't speak English and they were from everywhere. They were singing Beatle songs and stuff. And someone looked at me and said You sound good. And I said thank you. Someone handed me a guitar and I sang love the one you're with with a bunch of people who could speak English songs. That's amazing.

Thomas Mooney 14:32

Yeah, that's what like the whole music video thing. You remember like when CMT they would show him like all day where they'd have like a marathon of Yeah, like us 100 I don't know that kind of stuff. I remember seeing those as a kid and I don't know just the the one I was watching earlier this morning was freighting wheels and it doesn't really matter sitting at the I guess like in the little truck stop or the red wagon.

Kathy Mattea 14:57

It was a good restaurant in New Legendary little divey restaurant just closed this been open for you know, 4050 year window. George.

Unknown Speaker 15:05

Hi wagon. Sorry.

Thomas Mooney 15:07

Do you still have that George Strait sweatshirt?

Kathy Mattea 15:09

I don't. I saw that. George Strait it Okay, yeah. And so, you know, we're all about, you know, being excited to be there. And we wanted to show how being on the road. What we decided to do with the video was to say, you know, we're out there with the truckers all the time. And I can remember being in an ice storm one time driving back from a gig and. And we were going down a hill and passing an 18 Wheeler. And as we came around them, I was sitting in the jump seat by the driver. And as we came around, it was a black truck and painted on the door was 18 wheels and a dozen roses and an airbrush picture of a dozen roses. Yeah. And I thought, I really want to like honk our horns at this guy. But we're all like, it was so treacherous. I was afraid that he'd get excited. And we have a wreck. Right? But you know, those kinds of things. There's a very symbiotic relationship between the truckers that drive at night and the bus drivers that drive.

Thomas Mooney 16:09

Yeah, because it's the same hours. It's the same same life in a lot of ways it stops you say exactly. I know a lot of people that I've talked with that start out in vans, right? They say how I guess the, the transition from the van to the to the bus is always one where, oh, back, we're in the van. We could go and park in different ways. And now like we're kind of like if we don't have to drive but we're kind of just stuck where the bus goes. And

Kathy Mattea 16:38

yeah, it's quite a transition. And you're not as tired but you have to sleep on a bus. Yeah, there's a whole other layer to it. Yeah. of the other video was 455 rocket and we went to a car studio in LA. And they had a big car turntable with a big light on the car. The light was 15 $100 a day to rent. And they did car commercials. That's what they did. So that was like quite an adventure just to see how they do that stuff.

Thomas Mooney 17:07

Yeah, yeah, that's, it's, it's amazing like to just how that all of that just kind of got I guess people still do music videos, but they're just not the productions, Nevers. They don't spend a grand or we spent hundreds of 1000s of dollars on something. Yeah. And,

Kathy Mattea 17:23

and it was just, it was an art form. And it was another outlet to play your song. Right? So it was really,

Unknown Speaker 17:34

you know,

Unknown Speaker 17:36

looking back,

Kathy Mattea 17:37

we were just saying a few minutes ago, how you can't see what it is when you're in it. But looking back, it feels like a bit of a little mini Golden Age. You know, music was good. And everybody was creative, and seemed like the doors flung wide open. Lots of people were welcomed, you know, like, I love it. And Steve Earle and Nancy, played on the on mainstream radio. I mean, it was just it was wonderful time

Thomas Mooney 18:00

that it does feel like that time I think we always like when you look back. And when you describe an era, if you will, you kind of have to just give it a you know, a little genre title, if you will, to describe everything. And a lot of people for the late 80s, early 90s. It's like the Neo traditional, yeah, Bible, that kind of stuff. But there was a lot of a wide range of sounds how it went

Kathy Mattea 18:26

to one. And interestingly, I used to, you know, it was really funny to me, because they would call me like, traditional, and they would call me progressive, because I sort of straddle the fence. And I always had a good chuckle about that. But you know what, Steve Earle calls that era, he calls it the great credibility scare.

Thomas Mooney 18:46

I've heard that before. Yeah, it's Yeah, it's it is interesting, because guys like Marty Stewart were on the radio and lay they kind of just stop being on the radio all of a sudden, even though they're kind of playing. Yeah. He produced one of your records. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 19:04

Did

Thomas Mooney 19:05

that thrill What was it like working with him in in? Well,

Kathy Mattea 19:14

I decided to make this record about Coleman. And then it was all going to be Appalachian stuff. And I, I heard this stuff when I was growing up, but I was never, I was like a sponge. I would, I would learn anything anyone wanted to teach me, except there was nobody in my role playing straight Appalachian music. I had a friend whose dad had a bluegrass band, and he taught me some stuff. But I didn't really have a mentor in that. And it was like going back and picking up something you've missed. So I asked Marty to produce it. And he said, Yes. And I said, you know, I'm so afraid that I'm not gonna sound authentic enough. And he was like, Oh, it's in your blood, Kathy. It's in your blood. And I was like, Well, sometimes I'm really afraid because I didn't come out of the hills straight out of the hills and I didn't sing this stuff from the time I was born. And he said, Just trust that, you know, you know this place and you know this music and you have a right to sing it. And so because he had come up through traditional music and played with Flatt and Scruggs from when he was young, and was this mandolin foenum. And, you know, is like one of the great authorities on bluegrass and mountain music. I just trusted him. I thought if Marty tells me it sounds good, I can just, I can just lean into the. And it was, it was an amazing thing to just, it was so relaxed, very easy going great players. And it was just one of the peak experiences of my life.

Thomas Mooney 20:46

Was it something you'd always wanted to do? I had an idea

Kathy Mattea 20:49

for a record for a long time of either about West Virginia, or the Appalachian Mountains or mountain life or home or something, but it would not gel. And then there was a big mine disaster, a bunch of people died. And I was torn up about it. I was like, why am I so sad about this? Why is this hitting me so hard? And someone said, you know, that's what musics for it's to help us process grief. We don't even always understand. And I thought oh, maybe that's the record, then maybe it's about Coleman and and both my grandfather's were coal miners. So the process involved going and picking up a lot of those old stories, family stories, and, and I knew the individual stories, but they began to make the bigger picture as I got into the success. The songs, you know, spurred conversations among family members,

Thomas Mooney 21:39

right. But, you know, the, I guess I'd read somewhere. It was a great quote from you saying how, when you moved to Nashville, you never felt like you, you know, you became like a Tennessee and you're like, yes, Virginia and living in Nashville. I think that's something that a lot of people can relate to. When they move to places like Nashville or Austin, or that they always kind of carry where they're from, that's what makes them yeah, that person even though they're going to a center of music.

Kathy Mattea 22:10

Yeah. And in Appalachia, there's a real sense of place, like the mountains that you grow up around, become almost like part of your family. You know, my parents knew all the woods around where they were, they knew where the where the good mushrooms were in the spring and where the slippery elm was one when someone got sick and had a sore throat and all that stuff, you know, I think that was part of really what I wanted to sing about, too. I think that's what drew me to that was just, it felt like going, I had specific places that are that I can relate to it from my family's stories. And I felt almost like I was it was like inviting my grandparents and that generation to come sit down. And, and enter my life in a different way.

Thomas Mooney 22:58

Right. Right. Um, lot of your music, obviously that that that record, and especially what you've done recently that these last, I guess when coal come out, like oh, eight or so. So like these last 10 years or so, you have definitely dived into more of the fruits Appalachian sound, but you can always go back and pill feel like you pluck a lot of different sounds and your old records that kind of like there's still like there's a lot of mandolin was at all like intentional back then. Like that you thought like,

Kathy Mattea 23:34

just I think I heard it a lot when I was growing up. It's so funny. I just did a thing with Brianna Giddens and I'd never met her and we were dressing she said, you know, just yesterday I was listening to last night I dreamed of loving you. And I was like, Oh, my God, I haven't heard that forever. And it's a rural Appalachian kind of sounding song. Yeah, I think I think it was it. As Marty kept trying to educate me. It was in me more than I knew. I just didn't feel like an authority on anything. There's this moment when we were making the call record of I had to do this song called black lung, which is Hazel Dickens signature song and she's like, oh, whaler like a banshee. She's like, so raw and soulful. And it's like this iconic thing. And I had found my way into a version of it that I felt like I was mine, but then it was time to record it. So we went in the studio, and I did it one time. And Marty said, Come on in. I think you got it. I was like, wait, that was just the first time I mean, like, Look, let's just see if I can do something better, you know, which is he said, Come in. I was like, No, no, no, no, you don't understand. me just I'm a singer. Give me one more thing. I can probably top that. That was just my opening. And he and he I realized he was going to be battle wills. We were gonna have a knockdown drag out. I was just gonna have to go in the control room and when I walked in the control room. Mick who has worked for Marty for a long time worked for me for a long time. mycon laces named me He was from Kentucky. He was standing there with tears streaming down his face and his dad died of black lung. I knew his dad. And he looked at me said, I think you got it. And then he was like, I gotta take a minute. And Marty just said, you just don't mess with that. Kathy, you just don't. And I would have never let myself trusted with any. Yeah.

Thomas Mooney 25:23

Obviously, a lot of the songs that you've been singing, they've been around you, you've been around them, they've been around you for a while. I think the more you hang around a song, the more you understand what that song is, and you become, obviously, it becomes a part of you. But like you, you understand more what it's saying today than you did when you first heard it. Is there any examples of that like that, that you? Yeah, today that you go like, Oh, that's what this song was, you know more about this was a

Kathy Mattea 25:56

guy that was a night sing and five and Dawn, maybe 10 years in, and I was like, I hit the second verse of the Father diamond. I was like, I know, but we're having so much fun. Please don't make a stop.

Just give us a few more. Okay, okay.

I know, it's just hard when you're so so there was this moment when I'm singing above and diamond I

you know, I know this song. I know the song, I had to tell the story. And the second verse went by and I thought, Oh, my God, sporting Miss read it back by side or took a shine to read as Hannah. I thought, the way she uses language. And this is just, it's just brilliant and economical, but gives it so much character. And I just came to and I swear that's all his has, like, opened up to me more than one time over the course of the last 30 years. 18 wheels is another one. That's it's a very simple song. And there's no other way to do it. You can't rearrange it, you can't make another approach to it. And so one night, I felt myself go, Okay, here we go. 18 has got to sing it for the people got to do a team, we got to figure out I was like, you know, I was kind of rolling my eyes on the inside. And I laid in the bunk that night on the bus. And I thought here, this is the beginning of the end. Kathy, if you let this happen, this is how it happens for people in your position. You are the person can you remember how you felt when you first signed the song and stage? Can you remember that? Because it was the biggest gift of your life at the time, musically. So it's your job to remember that. So the next night I thought, Oh gosh, our drummer Jimmy, he said such a great group of this, just going to ride that groove like a like a horse, like it's the worst. And just all sink into it. And the next thing I thought, oh, Bill Solo is so beautiful in this amount of weight for that. And the next night, I thought, however, I'm going to try to imagine what it was like to be Paul and gene in a room writing this song about their family. And I'm just going to be in that room with them and bring that forth. And then the next one, I thought maybe there's somebody in the back of the room. And this will be the only time in their life, they ever have a chance to hear the person they heard on the radio, sing it to them, and let's sing it to that person. And I just started doing that every night. And about two weeks later, Jim our drummer looked up he said, Jesus, what's happened 18 wheels lately, nothing has come alive. I don't know what's happened. And I never said anything to the band. And I think that's my responsibility. And it's also my pleasure, you know, I was steered by a very wise person, Allen Reynolds, you know, to, to be very judicious about the songs I chose. And now I'm reaping the rewards of that, you know, that wisdom passed to me.

Thomas Mooney 29:06

Obviously, when you're in a position that you have here, you're relating to you, I guess you go back and you you form relationships with these songwriters, who, you know, you've played their songs multiple times, or like cut multiple songs of theirs. Is there something about like, just just automatically relating to that person in a way once you kind of have have cut one of their songs that you know, like, you can go back to the well and that, you know, I'm saying yeah,

Kathy Mattea 29:40

I always felt I know that they care about their writing. And, and just like, just like it's my responsibility, it's those writers responsibility to not crest over in their writing and stay fresh. So I will go back to the well I just heard a song by Pat Alger who wrote going gone and She came from Fort Worth and a couple other songs that I've done. He's still a friend comes to our house for Thanksgiving every year. And I just heard a song by him that I was like, Yeah, that one pal? That one. I might have to do that one. And it's thrilling. You know, it's so it says, We don't go here with a bluebird or something, you know, they'll pull some somebody will pull something out. And they'll be like, well, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Where did that come from? And then just, you know, go in, and squirrel it away for the next time, right?

Thomas Mooney 30:36

I was gonna say that. I guess like, what do you go? Do? What place do you go to? To decide? This is how that song needs to be sung by me? Is it just like a natural kind of thing? Or do you can go through different versions

Kathy Mattea 30:55

are natural and spontaneous when I was young. Now, I think because I've done it so much. And because my voice is different. I don't always know what it's gonna do. So, and always even before, like, there's songs that just don't sit good for a certain voice. So you don't always know what it's going to do. But what what what we'll do is build Cooley who has played guitar with me for 29 years, we'll sit down with all the songs that we're thinking about, we'll start digging into him, we'll try and in different keys, we'll try different fields, we'll try different tempos, and we'll see where they settle in. And then bill might get a spark, like I did a song on my most recent album, that Mary O'Shea wrote a long time ago called mercy now, it was like, well, this is been done by a lot of people. And it's her signature song. So we can only do it if we own it, and own our version. So we started kind of working on it. And Bill was liking him one day, and he said, What if it was what if it was a gospel song? And what if it was done with those kind of chords and, and then I and then that sort of turned it into kind of a prayer for me, and, and the whole thing just took on a completely different vibe. and was like, okay, that works. And I and I own that. And it's different than anyone else's version. So okay. But it takes a while and some experimentation every once in a while, I'll find some old work tape on my computer that, you know, it's like, whoa, I'm glad we didn't do that. Yeah. But it's what got us to the place that did work.

Thomas Mooney 32:23

Right. It's such an interesting process of building a song and making it into something that's Yeah. Especially if it's been done a million times. Yes. Because I think a lot of people think like, Well, you could have the exact same way as the original artist. Go listen to the original, if you don't,

Kathy Mattea 32:44

exactly. I just heard on the, on the plane on the way here. I was listening to David Bromberg, Gregory. And he did an electric blues version of 900 miles, which is an old train song. That's all folks standard that identified and it lives in a hole. It's like, Alright, dude, I bow at your feet. For your arrangement skills. And that's, you know, that's a creative process.

Thomas Mooney 33:08

I'll get you out on this last question. Because this is, this is one of those things where I knew if I had ever come across any of you who had done this, I was gonna have to ask about Romeo. Oh. Because it's such a like, you were sitting in front of your TV when you were young orange. Yeah, it was like, but I forgot about it for so long. I just came across it was like,

Kathy Mattea 33:32

Yeah, when Dolly calls, you just say yes. And, you know, we It was really, really fun. I remember it being a really long day. Just great fun. We there was the part where you go in the studio and do your part. And then there's the part where we did the video, right. And that was the really fun day.

It was like

this, like that, that. You know, we always say the music business is like high school with money. You know, you're like jockeying for position. It was like the best. It was like, you know, the iconic person, you know, called us all up and said, Let's go have a party. And Billy Ray is just the sweetest guy. And he was just kind of like, okay, play along. And so it was just very sweet and fun. And my memory from that day was that shape and merchant uncovered or had not met Dolly before she knows that she's not really known her. And at the end of the night, I'm standing there with all my stuff packed up, and I'm standing next to my husband and she comes walking across the room. The place is almost empty. They're just pulling the last stuff out. She comes walking across the room. And she just looks me in the eye. And she doesn't say a word. She just start shaking her head. I said, Yeah, I know. She was like, I said, Yeah, I know. It's really really different when you see her in person, isn't it supposed to be a human being is she and it's hard to put That body in your mind and think someone lives in that body all the time. It's like she's so iconic that you, you don't think of her on, you almost don't think of dallies She's like a character, right? And you realize, you meet her and she's so down to earth. But it was just, it was a wonderful, wonderful, it's just like joy. That's my memory if that guy just joined.

Thomas Mooney 35:24

Yeah, I think like just the inner on that note right there. I think what you do is as a fan, as fans in general, you kind of project your own thoughts of who that person is going to be. You know what I mean? So that's what the that's just kind of how we always just end up doing it. You know, I'm saying like, we're you you have the idea of who Elvis's Dolly is. And if you ever meet those people, sometimes they're just regular people.

Kathy Mattea 35:52

Yeah. Yeah. As much as she can be a regular person. So she really is. She's pretty amazing.

Thomas Mooney 35:58

Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on. Thank you. I enjoyed talking with you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai