A Conversation with Kathy Mattea (continued)

PM: After so many years with Mercury records, it must have been difficult to find the right label, the right fit for your life and your career. How did it turn out to be Narada? What was the path to them?

KM: When I left Mercury, I didn't know what I was going to do. I asked out of my deal, because it just didn't feel right. I said, "You know, if I stay, we'll hate each other."

PM: It's a beautiful exit.

KM: Well, I could feel the part of me that just wanted to close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears and make another record and wait for it to flop. And I thought, "Why would you want to wait around? Why would you waste another hour putting it into this place where it doesn't fit?"

PM: Because people don't understand what it takes to make an album.

KM: Yeah, it takes a lot out of you. And so I knew I had to go. It was wonderful--I have so much love and respect for those people. It was wonderful to be able to walk away with good feelings.

So we started sniffing around. And there were these guys at Virgin Records Special Products in L.A., and they had had this idea--they'd had some success by thinking out of the box, and they'd been given the green light. They had this idea of taking somebody who had enough of a mainstream name, but enough sense of being an artist that they wanted to do something creative, and put them on their boutique label, Narada. They'd let them make the record they wanted, and use the big Virgin engine to distribute. They said, "You don't want to be on Virgin. You'd get lost in the shuffle. It'd be the 300-pound gorilla that would roll over and crush you. But this way you have access to it." It was sort of the best of both worlds. And I was thinking about an idea of a record that I wanted to make. And they loved my idea. So it was just a real good fit.

Six months later, the Mariah Carey deal blew up, and that entire division was shut down, all those people were gone. And I was left on Narada. Luckily the people there were just great, it's just a really cool place. You have to trust at some point that the universe has put you where you need to be. You have to work with what you've got. There's a lot less hype there, and they're really about nuts and bolts, a lot of their stuff is alternative marketing. And they've really embraced me. He just left this year, but until then, the place was run still by the guy who started it. He ultimately left this year to go teach meditation classes at the University of Wisconsin. [laughs]

PM: Who's that?

KM: Wesley Van Linda. He is an amazing guy.

PM: Does Narada do a good job marketing you to radio and TV?

KM: They have a pretty good system for that, but they've never done anything country. And we were moving away from country. But, still, there's a lot of our fan base that still listens to country. Actually, there's a new person who just came in with some creative ideas about reaching out to that base, and we are hitting the AC market well. [Adult Contemporary] They have a lot of stuff on the jazz charts. They're bright, and are after it.   continue

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