Hot Gig Alert (06/09): Folk legend Mary Gauthier to perform career spanning set in Cambridge
For decades, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier has enticed audiences from all over the world and continues to sell out venues across America on each leg of her tour. Coming off of the True Heart Troubadour Tour alongside Tim O’Brien, Jan Fabricius, and Jaimee Harris, Mary has announced a run of dates during which she’ll perform songs from several albums in her vast catalog.
Her eleventh album, Dark Enough To See The Stars, follows her celebrated debut book, Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting, and Rifles & Rosary Beads, her 2018 album that earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album and an Album of the Year nomination from the Americana Music Association. Gauthier’s early work, which began in the 90’s, reflected her newfound sobriety and delved into events from a troubled life, which persisted after she became a renowned Boston chef upon graduating from Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.
Dark Enough to See the Stars returns Gauthier to the scintillating confessional mode on such albums as her breakthrough release, 2005’s Mercy Now, as well as such earworms as the hook-laden Drag Queens in Limousines. Gauthier has never shied away from difficult self-exploration as with 2010’s The Foundling, on which she explored the repercussions of her adoption from a New Orleans orphanage and subsequent search for her birth mother.
Gauthier has earned deep respect and admiration for her thoughtful and introspective songwriting and storytelling amongst fans and fellow artists; Blake Shelton’s cover of “I Drink” and Jimmy Buffet’s take on “Wheel Inside the Wheel” are just a few examples of the artists who have recorded her songs. She has multiple lifetimes worth of experiences that inform her music and her deep understanding of human emotions. Although recovery, healing, and self-acceptance are never-ending ordeals, Gauthier has gone from being the wounded to being the healer, using her music to help others through their own hard times. Whether she’s working through her own issues or helping veterans and frontline workers share their experiences, Mary Gauthier has shown her ability to reconstruct trauma into a resolute and communal narrative for the greater good.
Mary Gauthier performs at Club Passim (47 Palmer St, Cambridge, MA) on Friday June 9th at 7 pm and 9pm. Tickets for the 7 pm show are sold out but tickets for the 9pm show are available – HERE.
