By Shelby Robinson
Mary Gauthier, a singer and songwriter from Nashville, will be performing at Jammin’ Java this Saturday, May 17, as part of a U.S. tour taking her from Nashville to Canada and back, by way of the East Coast.
This June will mark the release of her eighth album, entitled, “Trouble & Love.” Although this will be her first studio-recorded album in four years, Gauthier has been anything but idle. She has toured all over the world, including about 200 shows in 2012 alone and had her music featured on popular TV shows including HBO’s “Injustice” and most recently ABC’s “Nashville.”
Gauthier had a rocky young-adulthood, culminating in her struggle to own and run a restaurant while dealing with drug and alcohol addiction. After realizing she wanted to make a change in her lifestyle, her career also changed directions.
As Gauthier got more distance between her and her past drug use, lyrics began to flow through her and into her journal. By 2000, she was ready to quit the restaurant business, so she moved to Nashville to pursue her singing and songwriting career. Of her music, Gauthier says, “It’s always evolving; it’s always stretching and bending in new directions. Mostly I’m a story teller and that’s what I like.”
Given the narrative nature of Gauthier’s lyrics, it’s not surprising that she is also now writing a memoir, told through a collection of short stories. Although she is not sure when it will be finished, she admits that it has been very difficult and its completion will mark a milestone in her skills of rhetoric.
“Writing a book is so hard, it makes song writing look easy,” she says. “It’s like going to the gym: when I get home from the gym, oh it feels so good, but boy in the middle of it I really don’t want to be lifting those weights.”
Gauthier’s story is one of trials and persistence, delicately portrayed in “Trouble & Love.” Come hear the music a few weeks before the album is officially released and get swept away in Gauthier’s delicate guitar melodies and florid lyrics.
An Evening with Mary Gauthier
Saturday, May 17
Jammin’ Java
Doors at 6:30 p.m., Music at 7:30 p.m.
227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna
