ABC ABC Country

Is It Worth It?
I am advocating a sequel to the 4 Corners program ‘The Good Earth’ (July09).

News Item:
WA’s ’Griffin Coal’ has gone broke and cannot pay the workers their super entitlements. The State govt. has generously offered NOT to pay entitlements out of the taxpayers pocket. A pittance beside the royalties that accrued over decades.

This is how I learnt of the pitfalls of mining beautiful landscapes. I also advocate the pleasnt way that I learnt it.

By browsing uTube I gleaned the US mining experience that a country singer named KATHY MATTEA has crafted for her music. It is worthy of airing in Australia. This bankruptcy of a Hugom (Huge Conglomerate) is strangely familiar in the history of mining.

Kathy comes from a coal mining heritage. She knows the wealth, the pride, the heartache, and the danger that the industry brings to a community.

She knows the desecration over several decades and the community that works their machinery. Sure, workers are well paid; ‘Is that all the social responsibility required?’

She knows the fair beauty and fragility of the land and the new culture that replaces the old. She sings of the joys of a fat pay in the hand and the heartache of a pink slip.

She sings from deep in her heritage in a gentle way; but the question still remains, ‘IS IT WORTH IT?

trailer09 ********

Kathy's latest album 'Coal', inspired this comment:

‘I grew up in Coalwood, West Virginia, where every adult male worked for the mine, where every house was owned by the company, and where the entire focus of our being was an 800-foot shaft into the earth. My father, both my grandfathers, and all my uncles were coal miners. I also became one, working in the mine to help pay my way through college.

‘When I heard Kathy Mattea had recorded an album about coal miners, I thought “Well, who better to do it? Who is better to sing of these “Essential Americans” who are still climbing on the man-lifts and descending into the darkness to bring forth the black diamonds on which our economy rests?” The answer, of course, is that there is nobody better and this album is proof. I am here to tell you it is a full-throated beauty, both stirring anthem and a poignant hymn to these quiet, unassuming heroes. I am listening to it even now with a tear in my eye and a smile in my heart. Yes, people, make no mistake, coal dust runs in Kathy’s veins!

‘….You will note, however, there is no bitterness in Kathy’s interpretation but instead a vibrant strength. A miner will work and she knows that. Just give him the job to do and, by his sweet Jesus, he’ll do it.

‘Deep mines are often set amongst hills and hollows so miners see the vibrant colours of nature before they descend into the depths where only shades of the black await them and all too often the red of their own blood. These are the colours of the gentle ‘Red-winged Blackbird’. Irony, you see, is as much a tool of the miner as is the shovel. The poignant ‘Coming of the Roads’ is a cry to stop the ruin of our land which I know Kathy is passionate about. For most people, mountain-top mining is an abstraction but for those of us who have witnessed the destruction of a beloved mountain covered with sweet pine, towering oaks, and rustling rhododendron, it is devastating….

‘During my childhood, I went to sleep to the tramp of miners going to and from the mine. I slept through the low metallic rumble of coal cars trundling through town bound for the great beyond, and woke to the ringing hammer on steel coming from the mine tipple. Coalwood was filled with men and women who were proud to be miners. ‘Coal Tattoo’ and ‘Dark as a Dungeon’ reflect this deep pride along with the bitter fate that often awaits those who dig the deep coal. The instrumental ‘Sally in the Garden’ is an example of the Celtic heritage of many folks in the coalfields, music being the salve of choice for their aches and pains.

Although we may travel afar, we who grew up in West Virginia can never really leave that old place where miners yet walk with a trudging grace to and from the mines, and where preachers still preach in snowy white churches built on hillside cuts, and God, who we have no doubt is also a West Virginian, still does His work, too. This Kathy captures perfectly in ‘Green Rolling Hills’, her proud salute to our mountain state.

All of which brings me to the remarkable ‘Black Lung’, …
My father died of ‘Black Lung’ and our family was forced to watch that proud man die helplessly gasping for one last good breath of air. For ‘Black Lung’, Kathy chose to let her voice alone bring forth the fear, frustration, and pain of this awful disease. In doing so, she reveals her tremendous range and raw talent, as well as her courage for which I can only shake my head in awe. …..It’s a gift that comes from living the life of a child of coal. (www.homerhickam.com)
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Kathy's artistry and music tell of what WAS and how it was LOST; but the question still remains 'IS IT WORTH IT?' (trailer09)

Slaid sings a great song about the desecration of the American landscape for hydro dams. Country music is warning Aussies down under. See comments on Kathy Mattea! See the 4Corners episode called 'The Good Earth' 20Julyj09! ********

I know she is not an Aussie, but I love Kathy not only as an artist, but as a person.

Her latest Album, 'Coal', is a tribute to her hereditry. She is the daughter of a coal mining family and an environmentalist. She talks and sings of the hardships that her granfathers endured.

We should listen. Certain corporates have spent hundreds of millions to do the same here.