Pennsylvania Coal

Irene Kelley’s songs have been recorded by Alan Jackson, Loretta Lynn, and Trisha Yearwood, but it’s taken the veteran Nashville songwriter and small-town Pennsylvania native more than 10 years to record this new album. Kelley calls it her tribute to her coal-mining grandfather, and the album’s balance of pure country and bluegrass, produced by GRAMMY® winner Mark Fain, should make Kelley’s name as big as the guests on her album (such as Yearwood and Rhonda Vincent), if there’s any justice left. Kelley’s own voice has the break and cry that’s necessary for any singer looking to deliver naturalistic tunes of human relationships and toil. Two songs cowritten with Peter Cooper open the record and capture the essence of old-time love and ego (“You Don’t Run Across My Mind”) and the ache of nostalgia that comes with moving from where you were born (“Feels Like Home”). The title track, cowritten by Thomm Jutz, looks at Kelley’s grandparents as teenagers who came to America and never saw their parents again. Unlike country records with an "alt" in front of them, Kelley makes the real, unapologetic, deal.