Mary Gauthier at ROTR, Bellows Falls VT, Sunday, June 8, 2008
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VT Festivals
May 14, 2008, 9:06:56 PM5/14/08
to Vermont Festivals
hi gang,
for those of you who already know mary's music, i think you will agree
with me that there may not be a better venue in this country in which
to hear and experience her singing. this year's show promises to be
the best of the best. when she and fred show up in the same space,
anything can happen.
for those of you who don't already know her, try this on for size:
“Another day, another night.
Another night, another day
We want to go home
We can’t find the way
-- Can’t Find the Way,” Mary Gauthier
In the case of Mary Gauthier, four words are worth a thousand
pictures.
Between Daylight and Dark, her new Lost Highway album, finds her
aiming her compass at the sky and searching for home. It is from this
longing for home that this group of songs has emerged, and they fill
Gauthier’s new album with both hope and anguish, with faith as well as
fear.
Mary Gauthier knows these places well, having traveled through a night
that had stretched into years, from a turbulent Louisiana childhood
through odd juxtapositions of accomplishment and devastation. The
result is reflected in the music, starting as a trickle of songs
almost from the moment of her sobriety and swelling into the stream
that fed her first two self-released albums (Dixie Kitchen, Drag
Queens in Limousines), an indie-label release (Filth and Fire), and
her stunning Lost Highway debut (Mercy Now).
Acclaim has followed Gauthier. Mercy Now was continuously “discovered”
and lauded in the two years following its release, earning mentions on
a score of year end “best of” lists in ’05, including the Los Angeles
Times, the Chicago Tribune and No Depression. The album even received
a benediction from Bob Dylan, who included one of its songs on a
playlist for his XM Satellite Radio program.
Gauthier’s evolution as a songwriter continues on Between Daylight and
Dark, though the scenery has changed. You have to look closely to see
the difference, but it’s there, like a flower pushing through rubble:
an intimation of hope, a trace of sunrise in the troubled sky. It’s in
the understanding that even as a lover departs on “Before You Leave”,
Gauthier sings, “the light that used to shine behind your eyes gets
brighter as you walk away”. In the weary wisdom bestowed by love on
“Same Road,” Gauthier knows that “when you flirt with the shadows,
darkness snakes under your skin” – yet even here, there’s hope: “The
only way back home is to let the light of truth come in.”
“I’ll never get rid of that wild-child, going-to-jail, crazy-
adolescence story,” she admits. “But I’ve moved way past that thing.
I’m ten years into songwriting. I’ve finished my fifth record. I’ve
been a sober woman for a very long time, for many years longer than I
wasn’t. I’ve matured – and my writing has matured. And I am learning
how to allow myself to be vulnerable, to step out on a ledge and hang
there, as an artist, and as a woman; to allow my writing to expose
parts of me that I have always feared showing - my softer side, my
fragility, my needs.”
Gauthier has always been a unique lyricist, with an ability to
illuminate even moments of devastation and despair in beautiful hues.
That gift is evident throughout Between Daylight and Dark, though her
perspective has shifted somewhat. “As a writer, I’m figuring out what
my job is today, in this instant,” she explains, “What I did yesterday
does not matter. I am more in the moment. I know instinctively when
I’m onto something, and then I have to chase that feeling down until I
find what it is I need to say in the song. My songwriting changes as I
change, and though it’s odd to admit it, I discover a lot about who I
am in my songwriting. I can see how I’ve changed by looking back at
how my songs have changed. The songs on this record are a little more
fragile, a little more tender, and a lot more hopeful.”
Her performances on Between Daylight and Dark reflect her growth not
just as a songwriter, but as an artist. Unlike Mercy Now, which was
assembled layer upon layer, with each part recorded in sequence,
Between Daylight and Dark was cut live, with only an occasional solo
or vocal snippet added afterward. Just as important, she gathered her
musicians from a pool of players who know how to go deep into a song,
being familiar with the creative process from the inside.
Begin with Joe Henry, whose songwriting credentials are well
established. With Henry handling production, Gauthier invited
musicians like Greg Leisz, Jay Bellerose, Patrick Warren and David
Piltch to Henry’s basement studio in Pasadena, with an aim to make an
album unlike any she’d done before.
“Everybody was in the same room,” she recalls. “The vocal room is
isolated, but there’s a big glass window on either side, so I could
watch everyone and they could watch me. It was a performance, which
meant that we all knew when we got it, in real time. It was a live
performance with an intuitive band, and we all knew when we locked it
in. You can just feel it. I learned a lot by doing it this way.”
On one cut, a bona fide legend joined the ensemble. “Joe mentioned to
me that he had done some work with Van Dyke Parks,” she says. “I said,
‘ if you could have him come over and play, that would be
unbelievable.’ So he did, and I was thrilled to meet him. ‘Can’t Find
the Way’ was a great track for him. On the surface it’s about what
happened with Hurricane Katrina. Under that surface, it’s a lot of
people’s story: we want to go home and we can’t find the way. It’s
about being human.”
During the five days it took to cut Between Daylight and Dark the
focus stayed on the song: From the thigh-slap beat that Bellerose
dreamed up for “Last of the Hobo Kings” to the desert-wide spaces that
frame the notes on “Snakebit,” everyone’s performance started with the
song, not just with the groove or the chord changes.
“All the guys played with a lyric sheet in front of them. For this
record, I wanted the band to do one thing really, to create an
environment for the words to enter the listener’s heart. These
musicians understood that ultimately, I’m absolutely about the words.
It was thrilling to work with a live band that took my lyrics in and
then brought them to life with their live performance.”
“No more running away. I’ve made up my mind to stay. I’m gonna stand
my ground, stare my demons down …”
-- “I Ain’t Leaving,” Mary Gauthier
ROTR is damn near here......
ray
for those of you who already know mary's music, i think you will agree
with me that there may not be a better venue in this country in which
to hear and experience her singing. this year's show promises to be
the best of the best. when she and fred show up in the same space,
anything can happen.
for those of you who don't already know her, try this on for size:
“Another day, another night.
Another night, another day
We want to go home
We can’t find the way
-- Can’t Find the Way,” Mary Gauthier
In the case of Mary Gauthier, four words are worth a thousand
pictures.
Between Daylight and Dark, her new Lost Highway album, finds her
aiming her compass at the sky and searching for home. It is from this
longing for home that this group of songs has emerged, and they fill
Gauthier’s new album with both hope and anguish, with faith as well as
fear.
Mary Gauthier knows these places well, having traveled through a night
that had stretched into years, from a turbulent Louisiana childhood
through odd juxtapositions of accomplishment and devastation. The
result is reflected in the music, starting as a trickle of songs
almost from the moment of her sobriety and swelling into the stream
that fed her first two self-released albums (Dixie Kitchen, Drag
Queens in Limousines), an indie-label release (Filth and Fire), and
her stunning Lost Highway debut (Mercy Now).
Acclaim has followed Gauthier. Mercy Now was continuously “discovered”
and lauded in the two years following its release, earning mentions on
a score of year end “best of” lists in ’05, including the Los Angeles
Times, the Chicago Tribune and No Depression. The album even received
a benediction from Bob Dylan, who included one of its songs on a
playlist for his XM Satellite Radio program.
Gauthier’s evolution as a songwriter continues on Between Daylight and
Dark, though the scenery has changed. You have to look closely to see
the difference, but it’s there, like a flower pushing through rubble:
an intimation of hope, a trace of sunrise in the troubled sky. It’s in
the understanding that even as a lover departs on “Before You Leave”,
Gauthier sings, “the light that used to shine behind your eyes gets
brighter as you walk away”. In the weary wisdom bestowed by love on
“Same Road,” Gauthier knows that “when you flirt with the shadows,
darkness snakes under your skin” – yet even here, there’s hope: “The
only way back home is to let the light of truth come in.”
“I’ll never get rid of that wild-child, going-to-jail, crazy-
adolescence story,” she admits. “But I’ve moved way past that thing.
I’m ten years into songwriting. I’ve finished my fifth record. I’ve
been a sober woman for a very long time, for many years longer than I
wasn’t. I’ve matured – and my writing has matured. And I am learning
how to allow myself to be vulnerable, to step out on a ledge and hang
there, as an artist, and as a woman; to allow my writing to expose
parts of me that I have always feared showing - my softer side, my
fragility, my needs.”
Gauthier has always been a unique lyricist, with an ability to
illuminate even moments of devastation and despair in beautiful hues.
That gift is evident throughout Between Daylight and Dark, though her
perspective has shifted somewhat. “As a writer, I’m figuring out what
my job is today, in this instant,” she explains, “What I did yesterday
does not matter. I am more in the moment. I know instinctively when
I’m onto something, and then I have to chase that feeling down until I
find what it is I need to say in the song. My songwriting changes as I
change, and though it’s odd to admit it, I discover a lot about who I
am in my songwriting. I can see how I’ve changed by looking back at
how my songs have changed. The songs on this record are a little more
fragile, a little more tender, and a lot more hopeful.”
Her performances on Between Daylight and Dark reflect her growth not
just as a songwriter, but as an artist. Unlike Mercy Now, which was
assembled layer upon layer, with each part recorded in sequence,
Between Daylight and Dark was cut live, with only an occasional solo
or vocal snippet added afterward. Just as important, she gathered her
musicians from a pool of players who know how to go deep into a song,
being familiar with the creative process from the inside.
Begin with Joe Henry, whose songwriting credentials are well
established. With Henry handling production, Gauthier invited
musicians like Greg Leisz, Jay Bellerose, Patrick Warren and David
Piltch to Henry’s basement studio in Pasadena, with an aim to make an
album unlike any she’d done before.
“Everybody was in the same room,” she recalls. “The vocal room is
isolated, but there’s a big glass window on either side, so I could
watch everyone and they could watch me. It was a performance, which
meant that we all knew when we got it, in real time. It was a live
performance with an intuitive band, and we all knew when we locked it
in. You can just feel it. I learned a lot by doing it this way.”
On one cut, a bona fide legend joined the ensemble. “Joe mentioned to
me that he had done some work with Van Dyke Parks,” she says. “I said,
‘ if you could have him come over and play, that would be
unbelievable.’ So he did, and I was thrilled to meet him. ‘Can’t Find
the Way’ was a great track for him. On the surface it’s about what
happened with Hurricane Katrina. Under that surface, it’s a lot of
people’s story: we want to go home and we can’t find the way. It’s
about being human.”
During the five days it took to cut Between Daylight and Dark the
focus stayed on the song: From the thigh-slap beat that Bellerose
dreamed up for “Last of the Hobo Kings” to the desert-wide spaces that
frame the notes on “Snakebit,” everyone’s performance started with the
song, not just with the groove or the chord changes.
“All the guys played with a lyric sheet in front of them. For this
record, I wanted the band to do one thing really, to create an
environment for the words to enter the listener’s heart. These
musicians understood that ultimately, I’m absolutely about the words.
It was thrilling to work with a live band that took my lyrics in and
then brought them to life with their live performance.”
“No more running away. I’ve made up my mind to stay. I’m gonna stand
my ground, stare my demons down …”
-- “I Ain’t Leaving,” Mary Gauthier
ROTR is damn near here......
ray
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