Mattea grew up in West Virginia and headed to Nashville to pursue her music career at 19. She boned up on country music history as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Her first single was "Street Talk" from her 1984 self-titled debut album. It peaked at #25 on the Country chart, but Mattea was most excited by hearing herself on the radio for the first time. "I was actually sitting in my car on Music Row of all places," she recalled to Sturgis Journal. "I was at a red light, and Music Row is a one-way street, so there was a guy in a van next to me at the light. I started going nuts in my car and looked over at him, and pointed to myself and the radio trying to tell him I was hearing myself… He just looked at me and nodded, like 'Suuuuure you are.' And when the light turned green, he just took off."
Her first Top 10 on the Country chart was Nanci Griffith's "Love At The Five And Dime," which peaked at #3 in 1986. The following year, she landed her first #1 with another Griffith tune: "Goin' Gone."
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