The name Mary Gauthier is not what it seems, pronunciation-wise, what with the singer-songwriter’s Louisiana birth and upbringing - but then Gauthier (pronounced Go-shay) is not exactly a runof-the-mill musician, either.
Born in New Orleans in 1962, Gauthier was abandoned by her mother, adopted by a couple in Thibodeaux, La., and ran away from home at 15. She had addiction problems with alcohol and drugs, spending her 18th birthday in jail. With help from friends, she studied philosophy at Louisiana State University, but dropped out in her senior year.
She then attended the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts in Massachusetts and opened a restaurant in Boston, where her specialty was Cajun cooking.
“I named it the Dixie Kitchen and ran it for 11 years,” Gauthier says from a stop on her current tour. “It did well, but songwriting was calling me. I never mixed the two, as in having musicians play in the restaurant, but I was living in a good place to be onstage or watching those who were. The Club Passim in Harvard Square, for instance, is a great place for music, and I play there every year.”
Heeding her songwriting muse, Gauthier wrote her first song at 35 and released her first album, named after her restaurant. She had also begun to get her life together, getting sober the day after she was arrested for drunken driving on the same day her restaurant first opened. She sold her share of the restaurant to finance her second album, Drag Queens in Limousines, following that with Filth and Fire in 2002, Mercy Now in 2005 and Between Daylight and Dark in 2007. Genesis (The Early Years) was a 2008 compilation of songs from her first three albums.
In 2010, she recorded The Foundling, a concept album that deals with problems faced by her fellow orphans and others who have experienced the pain of knowing little of their backgrounds.
Her latest album, Live at Blue Rock, released Feb. 7, was recorded at a venue in Wimberley, Texas, not far from Austin.
“It was time,” she says about recording a live album. “I had been on the road long enough to be good at what I was doing. I had always admired live albums, especially the ones done by Leonard Cohen and Marianne Faithfull, but I didn’t have the resources to have a lot of production with an orchestra and backing vocalists, so it required a dedicated focus. I did mine with just fiddle and percussion and recorded a show in a beautiful room.”
Gauthier recalls having performed in Arkansas, at a Eureka Springs house concert sponsored by the Unitarian Church. She will bring a couple of Canadian musicians with her for her first Little Rock show: Scott Nolan and Joanna Miller, who will play drums, percussion and guitar.
Other musicians, including Jimmy Buffett, Blake Shelton and Boy George, have recorded Gauthier’s songs, but she cannot express a preference for anyone’s versions of her creations.
“I love them all and I have no favorites,” she says. “I’m just thrilled when anyone else chooses to record them, and it’s always a surprise, since no one has to request permission or anything. I usually hear about it from one of my fans is the only way I know.”
She’s at work on her next album, and adds that she has one other creative outlet: “I also write short stories, and I may put out an anthology of those.”
Mary Gauthier
Opening act: Scott Nolan & Amy Garland
9 p.m. today, White Water Tavern, West Seventh and Thayer streets, Little Rock
Admission: $20
(501) 375-8400
whitewatertavern.com
Weekend, Pages 37 on 05/23/2013