Kathy Mattea To Release 'The Innocent Years'

04/20/2000 10:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(4/20/00, 10 a.m. ET) - After a three-year absence, Kathy Mattea has resurfaced with a new project and a new attitude about life -- the singer will release her 12th album, The Innocent Years, on May 16. The long-awaited project is the result of Mattea's blood, sweat. and tears over the last few years, as she tells LAUNCH.

"It's taken me two-and-a-half years to make this record. I think this is a really personal album for me," she notes. "I wrote two songs on the record, I co-produced the record, did a lot of the overdubs alone in my basement studio, mastered the record myself, did edits on the singles, helped write the string charts -- I mean, everything, you know? It was just a real labor of love for me. It was a really great experience and I think I own this record in a way that I haven't owned any of my other records."

The Innocent Years reflects an ongoing personal change that Mattea started with her 1997 release, Love Travels. She explains: "I kind of began a process on Love Travels, of kind of personal growth. In the meantime, in the last couple of years, both my parents have been struggling with serious illness -- and they're both doing good now -- but I spent a lot of time helping my family and helping them kind of get things squared away. And I turned 40 last year," she adds. "I think a lot of those things kind of all come together, and sort of make a light bulb go off. It's like, 'Well you know, what am I waiting for?'"

Helping her parents cope with an especially difficult time in their lives gave Mattea the courage to pursue the things she had dreamed about for some time. She never wanted to look back on her life and wonder, "What if?", as she tells us: "I think that there's a sense that when you watch people that you love struggle with life and death every day, then it gives you a different kind of sense of urgency about your life, and it opens up your eyes to how fear can really hold you back."

Mattea's first single from her forthcoming album is "Trouble With Angels," which was released on Monday. The video for the song, which was shot in Italy, will begin airing on CMT today.

-- Margy Holland, Nashville