When Mary Gauthier returns to The Linda, WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio, in Albany on Saturday, she’ll be celebrating the release of her brand new album “Dark Enough To See The Stars.”
The new album follows “Rifles & Rosary Beads” from 2018, where she co-wrote with veterans, and her first book, “Saved By A Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting.”
In addition to Saturday’s show at The Linda, Mary Gauthier will be back in our region at Hawks and Reed in Greenfield, Massachusetts on Oct. 9.
Well, you've been doing this for a while now. But we're speaking as you release a new record. What kind of feeling do you get from that at this point in your career?
Well, this is number 10. And that's a nice round number. I like round numbers. My sense is that I've now got a body of work. And there's a great feeling of accomplishment to this release. This job of being an artist being a songwriter, and now being an author doesn't come without insecurity. And my, I guess, sense of security has deepened over the last little while and evidence points to sort of the continuity of what I'm doing, and it apparently I get to keep doing it, which is what I really want to do, continue on as an artist and, and 10 records in, it feels as though I've been given this job for real. You know, it's always a little nerve wracking to be an artist, to be honest.
How so?
Well, you know, the public decides if you get to keep going or if you have to get another job, you know, and I've been richly blessed with this fan base that keeps showing up for me. And I'm just forever grateful that I've been granted the longevity. This will be, oh, I don't know, 25 years on the road, making music, playing songs for people. And I think it's a privilege to be an artist. It's not a given.
You know, we've had a few conversations over the years. It's been a few years since we've last spoken. And we have talked about the early part of your career in the past. So if people are interested in hearing that amazing story, I would turn them to our website to check out some of those previous interviews. But it's fair to say, as a musician, you were a fairly late bloomer, and you lived a whole other life before getting into music. So now that you have made 10 albums, and as you say, spent this many years on the road, when you look back at your start in music, what was your expectation for what music would be for you at that time?
Yeah, you know, I don't honestly remember. I think that my expectations were low. I just wanted to manifest whatever talent I was given by my creator. I wanted to bring to life, my potential. I just think it's sad if a person or an artist dies without fulfilling their potential. So my expectation if there was one, my hope is probably a better word, is to fulfill my potential. And I guess you never really know what that means. It feels like potential expands over time instead of shrinks when you're really in the creative life. So it feels like my potential is a very different animal than what it felt like 25 years ago. The possibilities for the creative life that I have in front of me are bigger than I imagined them to be in the beginning. And what an exciting feeling that is, the expansion feeling instead of the shrinking feeling.
How long had you been writing songs and music before you had that abrupt life change and became a full time musician?
Well, for me, it was a process of becoming a full-time musician more than an event. I guess for about eight to 10 years or so I played just open mics in the Boston area where you sign up and play a song. And it's not really a gig, it's an opportunity to get in front of an audience and the audience is other songwriters who've signed up to play a song. And I did that for almost a decade before I decided to make a full-time commitment to being in music as a way of life. And that was a scary thing to do. You know, I was older than most people who decide to do it. And yet, I knew I had to give it my all if I were to ever if I were to ever get going, I had to give it my all. And so I moved to Nashville in 2001. And have been here ever since as a full-time musician.
In your career, you've really done a lot to connect with people, both your audiences, of course, but also in how you write songs and who you write songs with. Is there something from personal life or your background that makes you so hungry for that connection?
Probably, although I would think that drives most songwriters. I mean, when you write a song, you want to connect with people emotionally. I think the type of songwriter I am, I tend to think of myself as a troubadour. And inside the word troubadour, I hear the word “true” loud and clear. So I want to write the truth. And for me, that doesn't mean the facts. It means the emotional truth. And I'm driven as a troubadour to tell stories that contain life lessons and truths that everybody can relate to. And, you know, yeah, I mean, I was given up for adoption at birth and spent my first year in an orphanage in New Orleans, I was adopted by an Italian Catholic family. I lived there till I was 15. And I ran away from home and stayed gone after that. I had a lot of disconnect in my childhood. And maybe that's fueled some of this desire to connect with music and song as an adult. But also, I honestly think that most songwriters that's the pull. You want to connect. You want people to say the magic words, “play my song, Mary.” When the fan claims the song as their own, you know, you've done your job as a songwriter.
Well, I should follow up since you've brought up the idea of troubadours. One of the songs on your new album is “Truckers and Troubadours” and from what I understand, this has a very interesting genesis. Can you tell us about it?
Yeah, I wrote the song during the pandemic, with a long haul truck driver who's become a friend of mine, his name is Long Haul Paul.
Can't beat that.
Can't beat Long Haul Paul for stage name or an actual name. And that's his actual name. Long Haul Paul is what he calls himself and you can find his music. If you're interested, if you Google Long Haul Paul. He's recorded a lot of songs from inside the cab of his truck. And he's popped them on YouTube. He's a really good songwriter. And Long Haul Paul and Darden Smith and myself got together on Zoom during the early stages of the shutdown during the pandemic and co-wrote the song because Long Haul Paul said when he when he hears me and Darden talking to each other, his sense is that it's a lot like a bunch of truckers talking at a table at a diner, that the traveling songwriters, troubadours have a lot in common with truck drivers. It's a wanderlust-fueled kind of thing. It's the road, it's the pull of the road.
And I sense you see a lot of heroism in what truck drivers meant to the country especially during those sorts of scarier months of COVID-19.
I've found what they did to be absolutely brave, courageous. Nobody was on the roads except for the truckers bringing food and supplies to the places that that needed them so that you know when you hit the button on deliver, stuff would arrive. And you know, they were driving when all the restaurants were closed, they couldn't just pull up to a restaurant. There weren't any. Even the truck stops were closed. The restrooms in the truckstops were closed, everything was closed. And they were out there doing their job. And I think that gets overlooked a little bit, because so much has happened since then. But I did want to nod to the drivers who kept going, and thank them for their service, because it's a big deal.
Well, obviously, you've worked as a collaborator with a lot of different kind of people over the years. We haven't talked since the pandemic, when you started doing, as you say, some Zoom songwriting, and also virtual concerts and so on. How did you like writing over Zoom?
You know what, it works really well. I didn't know what to expect. That was really new to me. I'd never done a co-write with anyone where we weren't in the same room. Turns out, when you open up a zoom, you are in the same room. It's very, very much like being in the same room. And so the three of us, I was in Nashville, Darden was in Austin, and Paul was somewhere on the road in a hotel, I think. We were able to do it as if we were in the same room, because we were all on the same screen. And it was happening in real time. It turns out, this is a good way to write with people in other towns, and a good way to connect with people in groups.
How much trial and error is there in that process? I mean, because I have to imagine, you know, you're a creative person and you've written a lot of songs, but sometimes, is it just not working?
Well, when I was a younger songwriter, I would give up a lot easier. I can bring I can bring a song home now 99% of the time. I guess the bigger question is, is it a good song. And honestly, some are better than others. And for me, I don't make a record until I have 10 songs that I really, truly believe in. I don't just throw songs into the world because I wrote them. I want my records to stand the test of time. And so, you know, this, this record that I'm about to hit the road with is, is the first record of Mary Gauthier songs since 2013. I put out a record in 2018. But that was a collection of songs I'd written over a decade with veterans and their families. And my personhood didn't really appear in there. That was their songs, their stories. So for me, you know, so that's nine years ago, the last Mary Gauthier record of Mary Gauthier talking about, you know, something near and dear to me. So I'm a pretty slow mover, I've got a lot of songs, and I don't put them all out. I try to be very, very particular about what I record and put into the world.
When you're doing your own material and your own writing, what is the process like? Do you always write on guitar? Do you have a snatch of melody before lyrics? How does it work?
You know, it's different every time. Sometimes I'll come in with an idea and try to flesh it out. That's usually a pretty good thing. Because something has struck me as a potential song. So the idea usually comes with a title. And if I have a title and an idea, I can write it most of the time. Sometimes I just don't have anything and I'm sitting at my desk playing a guitar and trying to find a feeling, searching up and down the scales and the chords that I understand how to play, looking for a feeling. And sometimes that'll be the genesis of an idea. But yeah, for me, I'm only a guitar player. I wish I played more instruments, but I don't. And the music is sometimes the springboard but most of the time, the idea is the springboard. And that for me happens when my channels are open. I have to be a songwriter. I have to think like a songwriter, I have to really be observant in the world. And when ideas come write them down, write them down, write them down. And I send myself messages or emails or put them on a notepad. I write it down. However I can capture it, and put it into an idea pile so that I always have something to work on when I when I get to my desk.
Well on this new album “Dark Enough To See The Stars,” it seems to me there's a good bit of loss on the album and some sadness. Can you tell us anything about what was going on as you were working on this batch of songs?
Yeah the record is a collection of songs that I think are more or less about romantic love, finding romantic love later in life, a meaningful deep connection with another person and also probably because of it being later in life, loss. I have lost many, many friends over these last couple of years. Some of whom are famous John Prine, Nanci Griffith, David Olney, Justin Townes Earle, my friend, Felix McTeigue, he was a great songwriter, and so many people that weren't famous passed. And, you know, it has to do with age, it has to do with life. But also the pandemic has a role in some of this. And I just, you know, in one heart to have so much love and so much loss, it just burst sometimes with the emotion and, that's the fuel. I think that that has been behind this creative spurt with me putting on a record and a book within a year.
Has all that loss made you think about your own mortality in a different way at all?
Yeah, every single day. And I think a lot of us are thinking about that. The journey is a quick one, from birth to death. And I think that we're all reflecting or at least a lot of us are reflecting on the joy of being alive. Once the world reopened, and we're mostly not in mortal feel fear of this virus killing us, there's a sense of awareness of life. And I think that's why I called the record “Dark Enough To See the Stars.” It's in the darkness, that you see the stars, and it's in the grief and loss that you see the beauty and value of life.
Do I have it right that that comes from Martin Luther King?
Exactly. I lifted it right out of a Dr. King speech, his elegance and eloquence. What an incredible metaphor.
How are you feeling about the state of the country right now, as somebody who sings about it often, but also travels it?
Well, it's hard to sum it up in a very simple way. We are a very large and extremely complicated country. I see a lot of progress. I see a lot of things to be worried about. You know, I have been on the receiving end of an inordinate amount of kindness and generosity. And on a personal basis, I have had the experience of being connected to people all over this land. And I have reason to believe that in the end, love wins. But the story hasn't fully been told. And we'll see. You know, it's always one step forward, two steps back. One step forward, two steps back. I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. What we focus on, we tend to make larger. So if you want to focus on what's going wrong, you'll find 100 million things to prove your case. If you want to focus on where we're seeing progress and movement, you can find 100 million things to argue your case. You can't sum up something this complicated very easily.
So just one more thing. You know, we've been talking about your belief in the power of song and your process of songwriting. If someone's listening to this, and they feel that they have a song to share, but they don't know how to start or what to do, what's your advice for them?
You start with the desire to write songs, and you start with an idea. And then you find your way to the music. You don't have to be a virtuoso guitar player or piano player to write a song. A handful of chords under your fingers will do the trick. At the risk of being self-serving, I would suggest getting my book because it talks about how to approach this art form later in life from a beginner's mind. I don't pretend to be a great musician. I'm not a great musician. But I can hire a great musician when I need one. I'm a songwriter, and an awful lot of the songs and in the American Songbook have three chords and the truth. So, I think it can be manifested, if you're called to do it, with a few chords under your fingers and tenacity. You got to work hard at it to get any good at it. But it can be done. And I work with students all the time who are getting it done in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, just getting started. And it's beautiful. I love, love, love working with adult songwriters.
