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Kathy Mattea got on board, as did Del McCoury, Blue Highway, Everett Lilly and Robert Kennedy Jr. Before they knew it, Jen Osha and Jeff Bosley had quilted together a collection of music and words documenting a movement of the people.

From 2 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23, that collection called "Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home" gets celebrated live with a CD release party at the outdoors stage at the Capitol Complex in Charleston.

Free and open to the public, the show features Jen Osha and Grayson Samples, Matt Parsons, The LoneTones, Andrew McKnight, The Halftime String Band as well as local speakers.

The concert is sponsored by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the Appalachian Community Fund, as well as Aurora Lights, a nonprofit group that put out the CD. Profits from the CD go to grassroots groups opposing mountaintop removal.

Aurora Lights' first CD, "Moving Mountains," released in 2004, raised more than $6,000 for those groups.

Bosley, who has worked with many of the bands featured on the CD in his work with Mountain Stage and the Lincoln County Friends of the Arts concerts, said the CD has a great mix of music styles and people all tied together with a common thread of a love for the mountains.

"For a lot of people, it is about the protest, and I understand that, but what we have been trying to do with the music is celebrate West Virginia and to also sound a rallying cry -- let's not sell out to the highest bidder," Bosley said. "We are not for sale in some short-term race to liquefy all of our resources and sell them out as quick as we can. We are just a bunch of people trying to preserve our state from this next wave of carpetbaggers."

The CD kicks off with singer/songwriter Andrew McKnight and then weaves its way through powerful tracks from West Virginians such as Everett Lilly and The Lilly Mountaineers.

In addition to Lilly, a revered West Virginia Music Hall of Fame member, other well-known national acts that signed up for songs include Vince Herman (former frontman for Leftover Salmon who now fronts Great American Taxi); national bluegrassers Del McCoury and Blue Highway as well as West Virginia native country superstar Kathy Mattea.

Mattea said she was honored to be a part of the project.

"The combination of music and interviews on 'Still Moving Mountains' is especially intriguing," Mattea said in a release. "I am excited about the musical, inspirational and educational combination here, and honored to be part of it."

Bosley said not only did Mattea give them a great song to use -- "Blue Diamond Mine" from her critically acclaimed "Coal" project -- but also an interview she did with National Public Radio's Jeff Young on the show "Living on Earth."

"Getting Kathy on board that was like getting the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval," Bosley said. "From there, it was easier to get other people in the business to come on board. She was familiar with the first CD and wanted to be a part of this."

Bosley said one of the most powerful songs, he thinks, comes from contemporary bluegrass act Blue Highway, of which one member has driven coal trucks.

They offered up "Clear Cut," a song about the damages to areas that are stripped of timber.

"In many ways, that kind of timbering has as big of an impact as mountain top removal," Bosley said. "Look at all the flooding we've had in Southern West Virginia with our denuded landscapes. This is an important song in its own right. They understand the issues, and they've been writing about it."

The legendary Del McCoury offered up the Larry Keel song "Mountain Song."

Everett Lilly and The Mountaineers offered up "Long Journey Home" from the International Bluegrass Music Association's project of the year, "Everett Lilly: "Everybody And Their Brother."

Bosley said that song is important because so many retired Mountain State natives are coming back home.

"A lot of older West Virginians are moving back, and they have in mind this West Virginia of their childhood with clear, fresh running streams, and they come back home and discover what's happening, and they're like 'What in the world are you doing to my homeplace?'"

The project is picking up national distribution through a Nashville company and is getting reviewed in such magazines as Sing-Out and getting calls from CNN, as well as other outlets.

"We are not sitting around crying and whining about it," Bosley said. "All we want to do is to take positive steps to preserve West Virginia so that we all get to keep the mountains. We want a West Virginia that will endure."

The Herald-Dispatch

Kathy Mattea

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Music benefit CD cover for mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia.

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Music Del McCoury

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Music Blue Highway

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Music Great American Taxi