Kathy Mattea makes her 15th appearance on Mountain Stage, in a show recorded on the road in the lakeshore town of Grand Marais, Minn. Rightfully referred to by host Larry Groce as the show's sweetheart, Mattea is backed by the Mountain Stage band and her longtime sideman, guitarist Bill Cooley. Mattea kicks off "Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia" before segueing into a verse of "Country Roads" – a medley that took on deeper meaning to a Mountain Stage crew recording 1200 miles from home. She's joined by fellow West Virginian Tim O'Brien for "Untold Stories," a tune of O'Brien's that Mattea recorded in 1987, and by singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler for Wheeler's "Further and Further Away." Mattea first appeared on Mountain Stage in 1986, just before her cover of Nanci Griffith's "Love at the Five and Dime" became a breakout hit. In recent years, Mattea has turned to roots music. She's called her 2008 release Coal, a collection of mining songs, "the missing piece in my own jigsaw puzzle."
This show originally aired November 8, 2011.
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