Interview: Mary Gauthier, Famed Americana Troubadour, Discusses Touring and her 2022 Album, ‘Dark Enough To See The Stars’

Mary Gauthier reflects on her discography, ‘Three Women & the Truth’ concerts, and the interpersonal relationships she documented in Dark Enough To See The Stars.

Written by Rachel Joy Thomas

Photo courtesy of All Eyes Media

Mary Gauthier started out as a rebellious Louisiana native in the heart of New Orleans with songs waiting to be unfurled. At the age of 32, the Americana artist released Dixie Kitchen, a reflective project recounting life's qualms and conundrums in an honest and grounded vision. Her beautiful songwriting about deep difficulties, like alcoholism and joy in the misfit experience, could find a niche of relatability in almost any person. Cowboys, queer people, misfits, and troubadours found a home nestled in her artistry, which only continued when her seminal release, Rifles & Rosary Beads, received a Grammy nomination in 2018. Now, the 62-year-old has lived a healthy and beautiful life filled with grief that illuminates deep love. Her recent album, Dark Enough To See The Stars, reflects on beauty in losing and finding new love, which she shares on tour with Jaimee Harris and Carrie Rodriguez. Afterglow spoke with Mary Gauthier about her touring dates for ‘Three Women & The Truth,’ her recent album, and her songwriting process.

Afterglow: How are you doing today?

Mary Gauthier: I'm good, [it’s a] beautiful sunny day in Boston. The leaves are showing off here. Well, I'm just having a good day off so far. I had a good breakfast and had a great show last night here in town, and life is good.

Can you share a little bit about your background and yourself? 

I'm 62 years old, [and] I've got a very long story. I'm a singer-songwriter. I write songs and play them for people. That's my work. I travel around the world all the time.

I know you didn't start in the music industry until you were about 32 years old. Can you share a bit about that process of getting started in the music industry?  

Yeah, I started writing songs after I got sober. I got sober in 1990. And [I was playing them] around the Boston area. Then I moved to Nashville in 2001 and became a full-time singer-songwriter.

What was that process like — moving to Nashville after living in Louisiana? 

It was terrifying and wonderful. I just started over again at the beginning of a new career. I was in the restaurant business in Boston, and I decided to see if I could make songwriting work, so I got rid of the restaurant business and started over. It was the right thing to do. I'm glad I did it, and it worked out just great. But at the time, I didn't know if it was going to work or not. I'm glad I did it, and it [has] worked out just great. But, at the time, I didn't know if it was gonna work or not.

That definitely sounds like it could be a little terrifying. I mean, you started your career with Dixie Kitchen, and then you garnered popularity through Drag Queens & Limousines, and you became a figure in the music industry through that. I’d imagine that would be scary at first.

Yeah. It's not a lot of people [who] start over in the middle of their life, but you can. I'm proof of that. Everything happens in a process, more than a [single] event. That’s just the way it works. It's not an overnight thing, but every day I built a little bit of what I wanted to do, and [I] did what it took to manifest it.

You're well known as a singer-songwriter. For the most part, people know you for your lyrics and how they bring life to certain issues in the world. I wanted to ask: What is your typical songwriting routine like?

I don’t have any real routines. I’m not a very disciplined writer. I write when I can, but I don’t punch a clock or write on a regular basis. Yet, the songs still get written. For example, I have a day off today, so I’ll probably work on something in this hotel room for a while, then walk around town, come back, and work on it a little more. I don’t use a timer or anything; it’s a relaxed process. I don’t push myself; I let it flow naturally. 

I know you have songwriting workshops and classes, and I was curious about if your perspective on teaching songwriting is any different there?

Well, I work with songwriters a lot. I just try to help them understand the art form. I try to get them to be brave, and I try to get them to be honest. You know, I try to show them some of the craft to communicate their song. I love working with songwriters. One of the things I get to do is teach, and the job of teaching people is really encouraging people and telling them that they’re doing well — telling them what’s working and encouraging that to grow. I think encouragement goes a long, long way. I don't critique. I tend to look for where it’s got some magic — where it's working — and [I] show them why I think it’s working. Teaching is 90% encouragement. I’m just trying to get them to be vulnerable and get them to be brave.

To trail back into your own music. I know that your recent album and a lot of your work has very evocative storytelling. Authors like Wally Lamb and musicians such as Bob Dylan have featured you on their playlists. Do you have any particular literary themes in your newest album, as well as some of your other work?

Yeah, I mean, stuff evolves and you can sort of find a through line, but I don't think of it while I'm putting songs together. I'm not working on that. I'm just trying to get to what's inside me, what’s important to me, and what’s happening in the world. And then, if you look back over it, you'll find there's a [similar] through line of grief or through line of love or through line of the human experience that really tells the story of what it's like to be. Everything you find in literature, you'll find in music and song, but narrowing it down and sort of categorizing it is not really what I do. I'll leave that to journalists.

Dark Enough To See The Stars covers themes of loss that you personally experienced. You've had losses of personal friends and confidants of the years, and you’ve mentioned that through line of grief. What were some of the difficulties that came to discussing those people that you love in this recent material?

The reality of getting older is that you're gonna be losing people. And the pandemic was dreadful for that. I don’t even know how to talk about it, because it’s just life, where you love people and people die. It's part of the story, always. [With] the most recent record of mine, because I wrote a lot of [it] during the pandemic, and there [were] a lot of folks around me that we lost, that [through line of grief is] in there. It's just part of life.

In your earlier work, you discussed the AIDS crisis, as well as losing people in a similar sense. Was anything reminiscent to your previous work as you were working on this recent album?

When I went through the AIDS crisis, I was young. I was in my early 20s. It was different because it was my first experience of mass death. It was shocking, and I just hadn’t gone through that before. What’s happening now and what’s happening with the pandemic, well I’m older now and it’s different. People who were dying [during the pandemic] were older. With AIDS, people who were dying were in their 20s. It was a devastation in the gay community that wiped out a whole generation of beautiful, young men. I think age plays a part in how we process grief. It inevitably ends up in my work. There's no way around it. 

You have a couple of arguable love songs on your recent album as well, like “Thank God For You.” I absolutely adored it.

Thank you. That is a straight-up love song. It sure is.

What drew you to such a touching description when you were writing that song?  

I think that some people deal with grief by shutting down, and some people deal with grief by loving harder. I’m just experiencing deep love. Maybe it’s a response to grief, maybe it’s a response to getting older. There's a lot of love in my life, and that song is a reflection of my heart. I wake up and there’s a lot of love in my life. I feel it.

Yeah, that makes sense. This album also feels very local. You have this track, “Amsterdam,” which also has a sort of joyous energy where you’re experiencing a city and loving it. What are some of your favorite places in the world, and how do those places affect your songwriting process?

I’m in a city I love right now. I’m looking out the window of my hotel in Boston, and I haven’t been in Boston in a little bit. I just love Boston. I love New York City and I love Liverpool, England. [I love] Barcelona, Spain. There’s so many cities I travel [to] — 110 shows a year, so I am always on the road. There’s a lot of cities that I’ve gotten to know. I’m very well-traveled being a troubadour. There’s places I want to go and dinners I want to have. And I have great joy. I like traveling. So it would be hard to make a list. I have a lot of favorites.

So you love to travel, and you have all sorts of American and European audiences all over the world. Are there any pitfalls to touring that you’ve recently noticed, or have you struggled at all with the touring process? Is it all enjoyable for you?

It’s both. You get caught up in traffic jams, storms, airports, and flights. Traveling itself is a bitch. But being in different places is wonderful. Once you get there and you get settled in, [it’s wonderful]. The miles start to take their toll on your body. After a while, my knees hurt and my shoulders hurt from driving. Flying is just a constant motion because it physically gets harder, but I still love it. I’m just going to keep doing it. I know a lot of my friends, as they get older, they just want to get off the road because it beats up your body. But you know, there’s treatments and doctors, and you just have to take good care of yourself at the end of the day. I don’t drink, and I haven’t in 35 years. I don’t use drugs. I don’t smoke. I had a beautiful, healthy breakfast this morning. I’m in pretty darn good physical shape. I got a lot of miles left on me, and I’m going to keep going because I love it.

I'm so glad that you're feeling healthy as you're touring. For some artists, it's difficult and grueling for them. I also know that Jaimee Harris, your partner, is joining you on a couple of your upcoming dates and has sung harmonies on your recent album. I'm sure it's extremely exciting to have somebody you love working closely with you.

[It] makes it a whole lot more fun, that's for sure. Having her with me has been awesome for the last six years.

What are some of the best parts about having her perform with you?

It's just so much fun to have the harmonies and have her play the guitar with me.... We travel great together. Having someone with you to have dinner with and navigate [little things] is great. And we do really well on the road together. We travel beautifully together, and she's such a tremendous support on stage as well.

You have three upcoming tour dates in Texas with the title, ‘Three Women and the Truth,’ with Jaimee Harris and Carrie Rodriguez. What inspired the tour’s title?

We started ‘Three Women and the Truth’ a bunch of years ago with my friends Gretchen Peters and Eliza Gilkyson. I wanted to kick it off again, but Gretchen and Eliza are semi-retired now after the pandemic. I just love the [format of] three women on stage swapping songs. So Jaimee and I wanted to put somebody on stage with us. We invited Carrie, and we’ll play and trade [each other’s] songs on stage…. It’s a beautiful show.

You have your experiences, and then you have other people's experiences that you discuss in Rifles and Rosary Beads. Since music is an avenue for reflecting on the strenuous life's parts of life, what are the most challenging parts of telling other people's stories that aren't your own?

I'm a writer. That's just my job. I find stories that are interesting to me and I do everything [I can] to tell them. That's just what writers do. I love telling stories, and that's my gift. To get into a story that’s not [my] voice is always a thrill. There's stories I can tell and want to tell, and there's stories that just aren't mine to write. But I figure that out as I'm writing. The mystery is always [there] as to [whether] this is going to work or not. Some stories I've tried to write, [and] I just don't have the ability to get deep enough. [With] other stories, I can go in there and nail it pretty quickly.

Do you think there's room for things to change for LGBTQ+ artists in the music scene?

I do think it'll change as younger people take the reins, as younger people have power in radio and in business. There's way more diversity. After I played the Opry, there were openly gay people to [play there]. I think I was the first, but I didn't show up with a rainbow flag, I showed up with the song called “Mercy Now.” I was [just being] me, I didn't make a big statement about it, but I also wasn't lying or hiding. I signed the deal as an openly gay artist, and they signed me as an openly gay artist. And they booked me for the Opry knowing who I am, but I don't get up there and make a speech or anything.

What message would you have for any up-and-coming Americana artists who are just joining the industry?

When I teach, I just ask my students to be real, be vulnerable, be honest, [and] be [themselves]. [You should] write great songs because that's what the deal is…. Great songs are hard to write. They take a lot of work, but the songs are what people are going to respond to over time in the long run. So focus on the songs, and the songs will carry you.

This article was minimally edited for clarity and length.

You can follow Mary Gauthier on Instagram and stream her music on Apple Music and Spotify.