now playing: Kathy Mattea: Good News

Kathy Mattea’s Good News could be a soundtrack for Advent, the season of preparation and anticipation What a Wonderful Beginning is the first of ten traditional and contemporary songs of faith, trust, reverence and joy. In Mary Did You Know? the singer wonders about the mother’s thoughts as Jesus was a baby child, what he’d grow up to do, to be, and to suffer, and where he had come from. In The Star we are each held to examination in the star’s light and guided home by it. Somebody Talkin’ About Jesus brings all this into the rhythm of daily conversation, and The Brightest and Best and Christ Child’s Lullabye recognize the king and comfort the child.

It’s a gorgeously sung album, too, at once creative and in deep service to the music. It’s also not a new recording: this will be the fourteenth Advent in which it has formed part of my listening, and I’m not done with it yet.


Mattea has another holiday record called Joy for Christmas Day. It’s just as good, and there will be more about it to come.

Perhaps you'd consider supporting Music Road, as you think about the holidays. One way to do this:

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