In conversation and in public, Mary Gauthier comes off as a practical,
no-nonsense woman. Stoic, even. Which wouldn’t seem unusual, except
for the fact that her songs carry so much emotional punch, they can
leave you staggering. She has a way of burrowing into that hole so
many of us carry inside our souls, and emerging with universal truths
that show we aren’t so alone after all. Gauthier knows where our
exposed nerve endings lie because she’s probed her own so deeply,
finally learning to unlock the fear and loneliness that controlled her
escape-seeking trajectory for so long before songwriting — and the
sobriety that drew it forth at age 35 — gave her a steadier flight
path. Louisiana native-turned-Nashville resident Gauthier (it’s
French; pronounced Go-SHAY), whose songs have earned praise from Bob
Dylan and Tom Waits, and been recorded by Jimmy Buffett, Blake Shelton
and many others, is not bragging, just explaining, in that practical
way of hers. It’s the same way she discusses experiences that led to
some of the extraordinary songs she performs on the album. Renowned
songs, such as “I Drink,” “Drag Queens in Limousines” and
“Karla Faye” — which addresses the famous fate of that convicted
killer, but starts out with lines that undoubtedly reference their
author as well: A little girl lost, her world full of pain. He said it
feels good, she gave him her vein. But even though her six albums have
received countless accolades (2005’s Mercy Now earned her the
Americana Music Association’s New/Emerging Artist of the Year title,
and 2011’s The Foundling was named the No. 3 Record of the Year by
the L.A. Times), Gauthier felt she needed to rack up her pilot hours,
so to speak, before she could hit another major milestone: recording a
live album. When she was ready, she captured Live at Blue Rock at a
concert at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio in Wimberley, Texas,
outside of Austin. “As a songwriter, I’m always trying to go to
the deepest possible place inside of me. Past the navel-gazing, past
the self-conscious, to get to that ‘we,’” Gauthier explains.
“’Cause deep inside of all of us is the universal. And that is an
artist’s job, to transcend the self. … I’m in there, but then
hopefully, it goes past that and it hits something far, far bigger and
more important than me. That’s what I’m aimin’ for every time I
write.” The Long Players are a group of Nashville-based musicians
who have, since 2004, taken classic albums and performed them live in
their original sequence. Recruiting guest artists from their
exceptional musical community, the band has celebrated over 50 seminal
albums over the last seven years and gained national notoriety with
feature news stories by NPR Radio "All Things Considered."
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19/05/2015 Last update