Intimate performance by American singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier
With a wonderful acoustic and highly intimate performance of American singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier and Michele Gazich on violin it’s a splendid night for all attending alt-country and folk lovers. No wonder the venue LUX, Nijmegen in Holland is fully packed with admirers who want to see this legendary Americana artist and troubadour perform live. With this show Gauthier’s kicks off of her current European tour.
Back in the US the New Orleans, Louisiana born Mary Gauthier is rightfully considered to be one of the greatest and most admired singer-songwriters. Obviously Gauthier plays quite some songs of her most recent album Trouble & Love. Like the opening song False From True, the beautiful How You Learn To Live Alone and the title track that Gauthier wrote in a hotel in Saratoga Springs (New York).
All of Gauthier’s songs are derived out of own experiences. They’re all deeply moving personal narratives that are often recognizable. And should be listened to attentively because that’s definitely part of the beauty of her music. Tonight the songs are given a special immersion by the highly emotional play of Michele Gazich on violin. Like no other Mary Gauthier is able to transform her personal experiences, grief, sorrow and hardship into great music.
Experienced expert
When it comes to themes like rejection, separation, loneliness, anxiety, alcohol and drugs Gauthier is a real experienced expert. After birth she’s adopted as a baby and ends up in a family where the ‘father’ of the house is an alcoholic. As a teenager Gauthier runs away from home and starts to live a life as a wanderer, abusing alcohol and drugs. Eventually Gauthier is able to kick her habits and finds her passion in writing and singing impressive Americana songs.
In that perspective Gauthier can draw from an armoury of sad personal experiences that lead up to beautiful songs like the up-front I Drink and the sensitive Between Daylight And Dark of her eponymous 2007 album. Furthermore – besides the before mentioned False From True, Trouble and Love and How You Learn To Live Alone – with When A Woman Goes Cold and Another Train (about a broken heart after a sad ending to an intimate relationship) more songs of her most recent album pass by.
Robert Johnson
Most of the songs are introduced by Gauthier with a personal anecdote. Leading up to Oh Soul she notifies the audience that she wrote this song with British singer-songwriter Ben Glover after a joint visit to the grave of blues legend Robert Johnson near Greenwood, Mississippi. And jokingly and with some self-mockery she announces that her song Mercy Now is put on the list of 40 Saddest Country Songs of All Time by the renowned magazine Rolling Stone.
In the encore Gauthier plays the marvelous and fragile Go In Peace in which the subtle and moving sounds of Michele Gazich playing the violin is once more eminent. With Go In Peace (a song she wrote with friend and colleague Sam Baker) Mary Gauthier puts a fitting end to a beautiful and highly intimate performance for which she gets a rightful and well deserved standing ovation.
In the coming days it’s possible to see Mary Gauthier and Michele Gazich perform in Holland in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Zoetermeer, Hoofddorp and Apeldoorn. And on the 18th of October she’s one of the performing artists on festival Ramblin Roots in Utrecht.
