Mary Gauthier is a Grammy-nominated American folk singer/songwriter and author whose dark atmospheres and tales of marginalized people draw on her early experiences with addiction and recovery and growing up gay in Southern Louisiana. She made her initial mark in 1999 following her self-released sophomore effort, Drag Queens in Limousines, which had critics comparing her self-described "country noir" to the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, John Prine, and Lucinda Williams. The success of the LP led to main-stage shows at festivals around the country and eventually the world, followed by a string of well-received albums. In 2018 she released the acclaimed Rifles Rosary Beads, which she co-wrote with military veterans and their families, and in 2021 she published the memoir Saved by a Song. Dark Enough to See the Stars, Gauthier's 11th studio effort, appeared the following year.

Embraced by critics, folkies, and No Depression fans alike, Gauthier's warmly candid treatment of her fringe-dwelling subjects rings true -- it never verges on sentimental -- her characters' downtrodden lives are never coldly exploited. Instead, these are people she knows, whom she met after dropping out of her Louisiana high school and stealing the family car at the age of 15, only to find herself in detox at 16 and jailed in Kansas City at 18. Her own wayward path led her to culinary school and, eventually, she opened a successful restaurant in Boston's Back Bay -- Dixie Kitchen -- which she sold after her music career started to take off.

Filth Fire, Gauthier's third album, was produced by former Lucinda Williams sidekick Gurf Morlix and released in July 2002. Mercy Now was issued in 2005 by Lost Highway, followed by the Joe Henry-produced Between Daylight and Dark in 2007. Gauthier next released the autobiographical The Foundling, produced by Mike Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies, on Razor Tie Records in 2010. The album was a breakthrough, celebrated internationally.

Gauthier underwent a deep personal loss before recording her next effort and wrote songs during her grieving period. She abandoned the songs as too dark to record. Gauthier wrote new songs "through the darkness to get to the truth." She convened a small group of musicians at Nashville's Skaggs Place Studio and cut them live to tape. The end result, Trouble Love, was released in June of 2014.

Gauthier toured often over the next three years. She also got involved with the Songwriting with Soldiers, a renowned non-profit organization that uses songwriting as a catalyst for positive change. They offer participants a unique way to tell their stories, rebuild trust, release pain, and forge new bonds. In SWS retreat and workshop settings, service members are paired with professional songwriters to craft songs about their experiences, often about combat and the return home. Through their songs, participants rediscover their creativity and reconnect with family, friends, and communities. The songs are recorded and shared through recordings, concerts, and social media in order to bridge the divide between military and civilian communities, and build awareness of the challenges faced by our returning service members. Gauthier co-wrote ten songs with members of the project (as well as Beth Nielsen Chapman, Ashley Cleveland, and Georgia Middleman). She teamed with producer/drummer Neilson Hubbard, and a cast of crack musicians who included Will Kimbrough, Chapman, Kris Donegan, and Odetta Settles to record what would become Rifles Rosary Beads, issued by Thirty Tigers in collaboration with SWS in January of 2018. The album earned Gauthier her first Grammy nomination. Later that year she published a moving memoir, Saved by a Song, and in 2022 she released her 11th long-player, Dark Enough to See the Stars, which combined upbeat songs about new love and contentment with tales of heartache informed by the losses of friends and contemporaries John Prine, Nanci Griffith, and David Olney. ~ Kim Reick Kunoff & James Christopher Monger, Rovi