Photo of Theresa Andersson and Susan Cowsill © Jef Jaisun, jaisunphoto.com. All Rights Reserved
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest 2008) opened on Friday May 25 to a packed park, and the sight of the crowds staking out spots on the racetrack infield signaled that the heart and soul of New Orleans was back. That is not to forget that much of the city infrastructure is still in shambles, but the spirit of New Orleans does not and will not give up in the continuing aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Like their protecting presence in so much of southern life, women dominated the main Acura Stage, and the opening acts featured New Orleans' sweetheart Susan Cowsill, honkey tonk queen Kim Carson, and the incomparable and indefinable Theresa Andersson. The women graciously supported each other on a song or two and the crowd loved it. You did not read about this in the mainstream reportage or the local Louisiana press, since headliners Sheryl Crow, Allison Krauss and Robert Plant dominated reviews and headlines from USA Today to the Advocate. The truth be told, the crowd loved the local talent as well, and responded with enough hoots, whistles and applause to be heard all the way to Lafayette, Lake Charles, and beyond.
Susan Cowsill opened the Acura Stage on Friday. For readers too young to remember, pop icon Cowsill was the "baby" sister of the late 60's pop group, The Cowsills, a real life model for television's The Partridge Family. Cowsill is now a fifteen-year resident and multiple music awards winner in the Crescent City, and either consistently wins or is nominated in the Best female Vocalist and Roots Rock Categories. If anyone has ever doubted that her homage to the city that America forgot in the aftermath of Katrina, "Crescent City Snow," is the best Katrina song ever written, ask the crowds that are riveted with every performance. Review after review mentions the intense audience response and connection to the song. Even the mainstream has picked up on this phenomenon and the Associated Press dubbed Crescent City Snow the "anthem" of Katrina in its opening feature on Jazz Fest 2008.
John Swenson has been writing about pop music since 1967. Swenson wrote for Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, Circus, Rock World, and OffBeat Magazine, and was a syndicated music columnist at United Press International and Reuters. Cowsill was on Swenson's must-see list for Day One of Jazz Fest.
Here is a video of Cowsill's cover of the great Lucinda Williams' "Drunken Angel," performed at French Quarter Fest. Video, unfortunately, was not permitted at Jazz Fest.
Swenson also picked "underrated local country/rockabilly singer and roadhouse queen Kim Carson, [and] the eclectic and imaginative Theresa Andersson Group" to head his personal Fest plan.
Kim Carson is a Texas native country singer and has performed at Jazz Fest close to a dozen times. Carson is known for her unique style and sound, known as "the real deal country." Carson is a hard-working musician and walked onto the Acura Stage fresh off a thirteen-week winter tour that took her to Germany, Switzerland, Costa Rica and Panama.
Cowsill joined Carson for harmony vocals on the song, "Wondering," and the result had audience members whispering that the two women sounded "like angels." It was the first time Carson and Cowsill had performed together.
Jazz Fest organizer Quint Davis personally picked local vocalist and fiddle player Theresa Andersson to precede Krauss and Plant. Davis was quoted as saying there was "nobody else" he wanted for the slot but local girl Andersson with her self-described "psychedelic, healing and easy listening" music. Susan Cowsill also joined Andersson for harmony vocals. The poignancy of the three hometown women joining each other on stage was not lost to locals. All suffered tremendous personal and financial losses to hurricane Katrina, but returned to live and love in the city that loves them back.
There is no doubt that the local talent is terrific and under-appreciated by the national media. This includes dozens and dozens of acts and musicians like Paul Sanchez, Sonia Tetlow, Tab Benoit, and the incomparable John Bouette. This writer thought she was the only press who had a couple of gripes with fest organizers, but it turns out other working stiffs were denied the prime real estate of photo pits and VIP tenting which went to what organizers termed "bigger media." Perhaps that is why local talent is under-recognized, but that is a topic for another column. A couple of writers and photogs got together and compared notes. We all thought that perhaps Jazz Fest is getting a little too big for its britches when it comes to managing media. National and International Press got the VIP treatment and reviewed the national acts. The rest of us got some free tickets and hassles from security. But, we got the job done.
OffBeat music critic, Alex Rawls, notes that something else is happening at Jazz Fest--something that impacts audience members as well. Rawls wrote, "The audience was backed up at least five yards - now approximately 10 yards from the stage - so that those wealthy enough to make the $450+ price tag had room to wander up and loiter comfortably during the show while fans were pressed against the railing. The area runs the width of the stage, so it's not just a pocket at stage center. It's a strip of prime real estate that has been turned over to the rich."
But, let's go back to Cowsill and Andersson, throw in the "lost soul queen" of the sixties, Betty Harris, and see what can happen when music has her way and money takes a back seat.
For those lucky enough to be there, magic happened in Algiers that Friday night and you could imagine the music muse spreading her sheltering wings over a funky little bar on the levee, a joint called the Old Point. This was an instance in which the soul of music and art was revealed in a way that the poets write about. This was no manipulative themed tour like those supported and honed by massive music machines which feature phony southern-themed tent-revivals that are nothing more than circus side-shows designed to eclipse the real heart and soul of music making. So many musicians have abandoned Louisiana and New Orleans, but still try to make a buck or two off of the suffering. A couple of survivors gathered in Algiers and took music back for the Mississippi delta in a huge way.
Local promoter, producer and well-respected musician Marc Stone bet the farm by scheduling a show on the opening night of Jazz Fest. Well, it probably wasn't that dicey, since he chose the incomparable Betty Harris to work her magic at the Old Point. We reviewed Betty once before at the same venue and once again she did not disappoint. Betty Harris is a master of the soul performance. There is, quite simply, no one like her, and to see her live is to have a Betty Harris experience. See our previous review here . It still holds up. Go buy her CD, "Intuition."
Something happened during Harris' performance which revealed the grace and elegance of a soul queen who knows exactly who she is and is big enough to take a pause in her own superbly crafted show to give what amounted to a tribute to a younger female artist she spotted in the packed crowd. It was the first of several "wow" moments that night, and this writer will never forget it. As fate, the luck of the draw, or music angels would have it, Seattle based, award winning music photographer, Jef Jaisun, was also in the house. Jaisun covers music because he loves it. He is not in it for the money (there is none). His photos eloquently capture the texture of the moments they depict.
Harris, looking elegant in a blue sequined black gown, expressed her internal elegance and the definition of "soul" by literally stopping the show when she spotted Susan Cowsill in the crowd. Harris described the first time she saw Cowsill perform, which was a week earlier in a run down little joint in Atlanta. Harris spoke in a quiet, drawn out drawl that magically produced a hushed silence in the excited crowd. She spoke of the "Cowsill sound" which was evident in the voice of a woman who "sang her heart out" to an almost empty Atlanta bar in the strong, confident voice of a true performer. Harris brought tears to Cowsill's eyes when she went on to compliment Cowsill's back-up drummer and husband, Russ Broussard, for being a white guy who is a "black drummer," meaning that Broussard knew how to fill in all of the nuances needed to compliment Cowsill's sparse accompaniment on guitar and make the sound seem like it was a full band.
Harris' gesture cannot be defined, quantified or replicated. It was a moment that spoke to truth, beauty, art and elegance.
The Betty Harris show would have been enough to fulfill anyone's dream of a fine night of New Orleans' soul, but there was more yet to come as Cowsill and Theresa Andersson teamed up in a moment of serendipity and spontaneous musical art that could only happen in new Orleans.
With no rehearsal, the two women, backed by Marc Stone's band on some of the numbers, delivered a solid set and perfectly pitched performance that will never be duplicated. What is even more remarkable is that the clock was pushing 2 AM, and both Andersson and Cowsill had been awake since 5 AM the previous day in preparation for their Acura Stage performances. Luckily, photographer Jaisun was there to deliver some fine images of a fleeting moment. This writer had a high definition video camera in the trunk of her car, but could not bring herself to leave the room and miss a beat of music that filled the heart and soul with healing grace.
The opening tune was a Susan Cowsill set staple--Donovan's beautiful lament, "Catch the Wind." There was no chilly moment of uncertainty, as Andersson's electrified fiddle soared through the melody and her vocal harmony melded perfectly with Cowsill's interpretation. Jaisun and I looked at each other and mouthed the "wow." I could not help but remember the iconic moment when Mama Cass mouthed the same "wow" when she saw Janis Joplin perform at Monterey Pop. Jaisun resumed clicking away and I was praying that the moment was there on film. It is.
The tone shifted to steamy Mississippi delta night blues when Stone's band got solidly behind "Mississippi," an Andersson classic interpretation of the Bobbie Gentry tune.
M I double S I double S I double P I
M I double S I double S I double P I
Right in the middle of the cotton belt
Down in the Mississippi Delta
Wearin last years possum belt
Smack dab in the Mississippi Delta
Sittin and scratchin' mosquito bites
Old fox done give him the slip
Watchin' the mornin' glories grow
In Biloxi on an overnight trip...
Hearing those lyrics belted out by Cowsill and Andersson not a hundred yards from the levee, where Cowsill and I sat "scratchin mosquito bites" and watching trees sway in the wind a few hours before, was a once in an all too short lifetime experience.
It occurred to me that this was real life. A steamy night on a Mississippi levee, in a tiny juke joint, with the spring waters rising, cicadas humming, flood warnings on the backwaters and bayous, and honest, bluesy music hanging in the night air. Yeah this was it. The real deal. Wow.
Writer's Note: I have been nervous about doing too much writing about music in New Orleans because I have become friends of many of the musicians, writers and performers here. But, I have decided to make my own ethical rules as I go along. No one has paid me a dime to support this music. It is something I believe in and once you become part of the community of New Orleans, there is no escaping getting to know fellow writers. That is the definition of community and I am proud to know some of the people here. I know that soon this will become a paying gig and I will have some decisions to make, but there will be an ethical way to support these people by continuing to write about them, and I will find it.
New Orleans reminds me of the stories I have read about ex-pat artists and writers in the glory days of Paris. Those were the times when writers and artists and poets and patrons supported each other. There was no mad money machine (think record labels) behind the writers' community in those days. When I see how the mainstream media is favored at festivals, I think it is time to be bold and do what is right and necessary. In other words to paraphrase Betty Davis, "When you need a broad with balls, call me."
I am honored to stand shoulder to shoulder with the fine, under-rated and under-appreciated artists of New Orleans who have risked all to come back to the city and music they love.
Soulful Betty Harris Raises Temperature Of New Orleans' West Bank
By Georgianne Nienaber 
Betty Harris, on the list of the greatest soul singers of all time,
gave a knock down, drag-out-all-the-emotion performance at New Orleans’
Old Point Bar on St. Algiers Point. Some of the city’s finest back-up
musicians were there to support her in the person of Marc Stone’s Band,
and the 200 plus audience that crammed into the funky little West Bank
neighborhood bar was knocked flat by a performance that happens once in
a lifetime.
When Harris growled, “Is it Hot in here, or is it me? This love is hotter than hell,” the mercury soared and probably didn’t let up until a few days later. Could explain the heat wave in New Orleans this week. That’s the great thing about music here. Great stuff happens in little out of the way places and musicians go all out to support each other. The usually affable Marc Stone looked like an anxious wreck before the performance. He had put heart and soul into bringing Harris down from Atlanta to return to the city where she cut many of her original records for Allen Toussaint’s Sansu label in the 1960s. Intuition (Evidence Records), produced by Jon Tiven, is Harris’s first release since she defined the term “funk” with the explosive “There’s a Break in the Road.”
Stone wasted a whole lot of worry, because Harris still knows her stuff, the band delivered, and the audience knew it. Harris made it to the top of the R&B and soul charts in 1963 while still in her teens with “Cry To Me.” Backup vocalists included Dionne Warwick and Cissy Houston. After that initial success, the road beckoned, and fellow travelers included none other than Sam Cooke, James Brown, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin and most of the top names in black music.
Harris virtually disappeared to raise her family and sang only in church during those “missing” years. She has since taken major venues in the US, Australia, Italy, Spain and France by storm with rave reviews wherever she goes.
The past aside, Harris was in absolutely unbelievable voice as she played it all out over the Algiers’ levee. I would suspect people heard her across the river at New Orleans’ City Center. This was no small feat with a horn section that only the Big Easy could deliver. The audio engineer commented that even without a monitor Harris was able to bring it home because R&B singers of her day worked without a net all of the time. Hurricane Betty Harris did not disappoint, and the guys were blowing hard to keep up.
Harris was all elegance and soul, diamond ring catching the lights as she worked the crowd to their knees, begging for more. “I don’t need no love I don’t want no love, I don’t want your love, baby, They say love is a contradiction But I think it’s just science fiction… Take it and shove it.”
Where else but New Orleans can you stumble into a neighborhood bar and find Eddie Christmas, currently drumming for Jon Cleary, formerly with Sting, the Black Crowes, Gerald Levert, Willie Nelson and many others; Bassist Sam Price, leader of Otra and New World Funk Ensemble; Jimmy Carpenter, sax man and horn section leader for Walter ”Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters--not to mention a three piece horn section? Guitarist Marc Stone is well known and loved throughout the New Orleans music scene and has worked Campbell Brothers, Eddie Bo, Harry “Big Daddy” Hypolite, Terrance Simien, Marva Wright, Eric Lindell and countless others from the the Louisiana Music Scene. Stone convinced Christof Waibel, Austria “boogie piano master” who backed Betty at her triumphant appearance at Festival MNOP in France this year to round out the mix, along with Harris’s hand-picked vocalists from Atlanta who came along for the ride.
For video of Betty with the Marc Stone Band at Festival MNOP in France (August 11, 2007) see this link: http://vids.myspace.com/%20index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=18434184
Harris has a sleeker look now, but don’t skip this video. Only 200 people saw Harris at Old Point, so listeners probably won’t be disappointed with her Nashville-backed CD, Intuition. But, it is unfortunate that the Nashville band sounds flat and uninspired compared to New Orleans’ best. It would be fun to hear a recording with Stone’s band, a band that knows what soul is all about and is able to meld perfectly with the performer and support the emotion.
“I need a bible, bring me a beer,” (A Bible and A Beer) is what I felt after listening to Nashville sleepwalk through Intuition. Harris is worth the investment, though.
Harris keeps getting “discovered.” Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint recently covered the ballad, “Nearer To You”, which Betty cut for Sansu in 1967. Christina Aguilera included Betty’s original version on her latest release.
Check out www.evidencemusic.com
Note:
We came down to New Orleans to cover post-Katrina and environmental
issues, but the return of music to the Big Easy and the ongoing
struggles faced by musicians in a city that has been all but abandoned
by the music industry caught our attention in a big way. We think this
is an important enough story to put some real time and effort into. So,
over the coming weeks we will take a closer look at well-known favorite
artists who refuse to leave, and up-and-comers who will help define New
Orleans’ culture for decades to come.
Next up we will visit with Dana Abbott, a young singer/songwriter
musician with talent to burn, and a desire to make a go of it in a city
she has come to call home in spite of incredible obstacles. Malcom
Burn, who produced EmmyLou Harris’s Red Dirt Girl, thinks so, too.
Believe in Susan Cowsill's "Just Believe It"
November 4, 2007
Susan Cowsill Photo (Copyright Catherine Carter)
Carrollton Station (Copyright G. Nienaber)
(Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_georgian_071104_believe_in_susan_cow.htm)
By Georgianne Nienaber
Susan Cowsill is perched on the front stoop of her home in the Algiers
neighborhood of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi, doing
an interview about the wallop hurricane Katrina delivered to her family
as well as the local music community. The conversation drifts to the
iconic Summer of Love and when, exactly, she joined the Cowsills. Yeah,
THAT Susan Cowsill.
Susan recounts the discography: The Rain, the Park and Other Things, We
Can Fly, Indian Lake, Hair, and you can almost hear the refrain
drifting on the salty autumn air.
“Flowers in her hair. Flowers everywhere. Was she a reality, or just a dream to me?”
Only seven, she joined the band two months after The Rain, the Park and
Other Things forever defined the summer of an entire generation. It’s a
writer’s dream to be given the opportunity to recount an artist’s
telling of the beginnings of her career and the soundtrack of an era.
But, there is another story surfacing that has been lost. It’s the
story of too many artists who are bought and sold down the river by
record companies, deep pockets, pressure to perform no matter what, and
artistry that is either ignored or subject to the whimsy of news arcs.
In 2004, New Orleans resident Susan Cowsill released her first effort
as a solo artist on Euro Solo as part of a European distribution deal.
It wasn’t until October of 2005 that Just Believe It was available for
distribution in the United States. Rolling Stone, The Washington Post,
All Music Guide and others raved about the writing, the musicianship,
the vocals, the arrangements and the “emotional truth” of the
compilation.
Rolling Stone claimed Just Believe It offered “the hardy, heartbreaking
sound of a bar band angel.” The Washington Post shouted, “As good as
Cowsill’s voice is, her smart emotional songwriting is her biggest
asset.”
And the CD tanked. So what happened?
The soundtrack of Katrina happened and dominated all things media. How does a musical artist compete with Katrina?
Susan recalled being a virtual refugee in October 2005 when promoters
called her with the good news of the CD release in the United States
and expected her to tour. Her enthusiasm for the project became an
elusive muse. In October of 2005, Susan Cowsill’s beloved brother Barry
went missing, ultimately a victim of Katrina. Her life was consumed
with scouring phone text messages for clues as to Barry’s whereabouts.
Her kids hoped to go home to the orange juice left sitting on the
kitchen table of a home that wasn’t a home anymore and just wanted to
get their cat back.
The reality is that CD’s don’t sell without grueling touring and media
attention driven by the pockets of the promoters. No tour equals no
promotion. There was no way Cowsill could tour and promote what is most
likely the best work of her life—a project that took two years to
complete, untold financial risks, and would not exist without the love
and support of the couple of hundred friends who are listed on the CD’s
cover insert.
So, is Just Believe It that good?
Go buy it now. Buy it if you remember the Summer of Love and even if you don’t, or are too young, you will not be disappointed.
Listen right on through and the music will tell you a beautiful story.
Or, listen through once and find yourself hitting replay again and
again on Track 7, Nanny’s Song, while a mournful cello and the angelic
voice of Lucinda Williams provide powerful support to Susan Cowsill’s
strong, seasoned voice--the soaring voices of women covering a
beautiful, prophetic lyric.
“I was born with a broken heart; it’s not a pretty way to start. But, I
don’t want to leave this earth; I don’t want to let it go. It’s real
life that sets you free.”
If that isn’t good enough, the ghost bonus tracks are worth the
patience. We won’t give it away, but there is a hidden iconic track
that will absolutely carry you away and should be released by some
record executive with any sense and who wants a mega hit right now.
This CD is can’t be defined by the straight jacket known as “genre.”
Just Believe It is part country, rock, pop, and a touch of folk that
shows Susan Cowsill’s writing chops as well. She wrote or co-wrote
everything (not the “secret” ghost track) except the old Sandy Denny
folk classic, Who Knows where the Time Goes, and the singing here blows
the Judy Collin’s version out of the water. The rocker comes out in
Talkin’ when the vocal puts it to an ex-lover: “The last thing I need
at the end of my day is to hear about you talkin' shit around town.”
Quite simply, debut albums are rarely as moving, as revealing, or as
accomplished as Just Believe It, and while it may have taken Susan
Cowsill nearly 35 years to get to this point in her career, the results
are more than worth it -- this is masterful music from a major talent."
Rolling Stone
June 30-July14, 2005
Hurricane Katrina hit Susan Cowsill’s hometown of New Orleans on August 29, 2005.
Cowsill is also a former member of the Continental Drifters, and the
Psycho Sisters, along with Bangle Vicki Peterson. Visitors to New
Orleans can see her at Carrollton Station, where the Susan Cowsill Band
performs the “Covered in Vinyl” series on the first Saturday of every
month. Visit www.carrolltonstation.com and learn how these efforts
support musicians who were affected by the hurricanes of 2005.
Purchase Just Believe It at Amazon.com, iTunes, or visit the website at www.susancowsill.com.
(More with Susan Cowsill and Russ Broussard next month)
October 28, 2007
Sinead O'Connor Delivers Magic at New Orleans' Voodoo Fest
By Georgianne Nienaber for OPED and COA News
Nothing compared to Sinead O’Connor as she commanded center stage at New Orleans’ Voodoo Fest on Saturday, October 27. Two years post Katrina, New Orleans is still struggling to reclaim its heritage and culture, and festivals like Voodoo provide a welcome escape and just plain fun. Considering that O’Connor began her career over twenty years ago, it was surprising that the youthful audience gave a cheer when the intro to the iconic “Nothing Compares 2 U” blasted over the soggy grounds. Rain pummeled the Big Easy and caused some minor flooding a few days earlier, and the city had still not dried out. Voodoo is a great venue. Even though the alcohol was flowing freely, security was not a big deal and the only overt police presence was a couple of NOPD officers on horseback. The audience was there to listen and have a good time.
And listen they did to O’Connor. The Irish poet and singer may have a prickly reputation, but her live performances come straight from the heart—honest emotion—a still strong and powerful voice that seems to reach deep inside for every note. In an age where singing seems to be a lost art, it was refreshing to hear an artist who can wrap her voice around each note and send it out there. The audience knew it and sent the emotion right back to her. New Orleans needed a little Voodoo magic and O’Connor delivered.
Musically, the arrangements were layered and complex, but blended perfectly into a performance experience that was clean and expertly supported by her back-up musicians.
With a reputation built around thirty seconds on Saturday Night Live twenty years ago, when she ripped up a picture of the Pope, it is important to remember that O’Connor has moved on. She has had a very public profile lately with her discussion of her bi-polar disorder, but she does not use it as a crutch. She keeps growing as an artist, and the selections she offered from the double album, “Theology,” prove it.
Released in June 2007 on Koch Records, “Theology” is offered as a prayer—quiet, intense reflections of an artist’s personal journey. The Voodoo audience reacted in kind with rapt attention. A video clip From Voodoo Fest is available on her official website.
O’Connor and her management graciously offered us a short interview, which found O’Connor is a reflective, tired mood. Understandable, given her grueling touring schedule. Her response to questions about war and world events was a weary, “I don’t know.”
Honest.
We had to go to her webpage to get more on her feelings about “Theology.”
“It is my own personal response to what has taken and is affecting everyone around the world since and including September 11, 2001. I want to be very clear - there is no message. No preaching. Nothing deep and meaningful the artist wants to say, nothing trouble making. I simply wanted to make a beautiful thing, out of something beautiful, which inspires me.”
O’Connor is not an activist these days and has totally embraced her artistry. Refreshing in the age of Brangelina, when actors and musicians with no knowledge of the deeper machinations of world events use celebrity to bolster their own narcissism. O’Connor is the opposite. Humble and somewhat shy when we met her, graciously posing for photos, when there was no reason for her to do so.
O’Connor has been called the Joan of Arc of music. On a sunny Saturday afternoon in October, she rode into Voodoo Fest with her artistic banner flying and laid claim as the maid of New Orleans.
Voodoo fest was the first music to return to New Orleans post Katrina last year.
Besides Sinead O'Connor, Dr. John, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Black Crowes and Rage Against the Machine were among the musical acts headlining the weekend experience.
The three-day festival began Friday on the grounds of New Orleans City Park and also will included a host of Louisiana act-- Theresa Andersson, the Hot 8 Brass Band, Ivan Neville and his band, “Dumpstaphunk,” Marc Broussard, Irma Thomas and the New Orleans Social Club.
____________________________________________________
July 8, 2007
Mary Gauthier: Singing Her Heart Out at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe
By Georgianne Nienaber for COA NEWS
Audio/Text: I was at the Bluebird Café in Nashville last Thursday for my first chance to hear Lost Highway recording artist and country indie favorite Mary Gauthier live and do a proper review. Well, not exactly. The Bluebird Café recently joined virtual live-music venues and established an agreement with software developer SanSoft Inc. to produce Bluebird Café performances on the web.
For three bucks and a decent Internet connection, streaming technology has now entered the concert arena. It was a dicey proposition, since the rather spooky technology feels voyeuristic for an old time reporter and I felt obliged to drop a chagrined email to Gauthier and tell her I would “be there” for her performance. This type of venue offers a lot of promise for access to music that independent reporters don’t have the time or money to pursue. It can’t hurt the indie artists either, since press and promo budgets are obviously limited in comparison to big-name acts. It would have cost $700 and a lot of down time to get to Nashville—this review cost a few dollars, a couple of hours of some well-spent time, and two Cokes.Getting the technical critique out of the way, the audio was great after a few minor glitches that Gauthier handled with grace, humor, and a self-confidence that proved she knows her way around sound gremlins. Gauthier is an incredibly relaxed performer, and even a booming monitor and distorted guitar failed to cause her to miss a beat on her opening numbers. The video stream left a lot to be desired, but was certainly good enough to get a good sense of the performance and audience reactions. What was obviously missing was the one-on-one interview with the artist, but that would be a profile and not a review.
In the interest of editorial honesty, Mary Gauthier’s music grabbed me by the throat when I was in working in Congo and someone emailed me a couple of her tunes. Who in the heck is this artist who is by turns, gritty, irreverent, soulful, tender, tough, and wears her heart on her sleeve for all to hear? I was reminded of Patti LaBelle’s famous comment to K.D. Lang at an awards show: “You really scare me.” Turns out there is nothing to fear.
Bob Dylan highlighted Gauthier’s song I Drink for his XM radio gig. By her own admission Mary Gauthier was “born a bastard child in New Orleans.” Forty-something and a late bloomer, she is somewhat of a surprise in a music industry dominated by glam women. Channeling Janis Joplin and Hank Williams in her smoky Louisiana drawl, Gauthier is by turns a pretty and striking woman with a tough, yet vulnerable stance. It is a stage presence that is best experienced rather than described, and one good reason why a virtual concert can add a whole new dimension to a performer who is not easy to access. Gauthier sings about being “brave enough to love and brave enough to leave” and readily admits in published interviews that she never came out as a gay woman because “I was never in.” Her biography is all over the Internet, but other than the fact that her complex past has defined the soul of the artist, what is remarkable is that Mary Gauthier delivers a great show and incredible songwriting.
Gauthier sang her heart out at the Bluebird Café for an hour and fifteen minutes to what looked like, from a desktop vantage point, a very appreciative audience of mostly women. Can Mary Gauthier be THE new voice for women of a certain age who lost Janis Joplin over thirty-five years ago? Major label Lost Highway Records thinks they have the real deal, and the label is ready to release her second CD on September 18. Her first CD with Lost Highway was the 2005 Mercy Now, which the Washington Post called “one of the year's best singer songwriter efforts; even the presence of songs by Harlan Howard and Fred Eaglesmith do nothing to eclipse the power of Gauthier's originals.”
While Joplin was all tie-dyed, feathers, rows of bracelets, and her Full Tilt Boogie Band, Gauthier took the stage in torn jeans and tinted glasses with her beat-up guitar case as a backdrop. In interviews, Joplin used to say that she kept “Janis Joplin in a box” in her dressing room. With Gauthier, you feel like she immediately invites the audience in to experience her personal reality. She may drive a Lexus now, but her soul is still back in hardscrabble Louisiana.
Gauthier is a first-class songwriting power-house and told a fine story to her Bluebird audience about how Nashville thought she was “too slow,” and would send over collaborators from time to time to force the Muse. One experience made Gauthier “want to fling myself out the window.” Whatever Gauthier is doing to collaborate with her personal Muse is working, and one hopes she keeps on doing what she is doing and ignores Nashville’s advice.
As she opened the show, Gauthier warned the audience that “If you’re feelin’ good, hold onto it, ‘cause it ain’t gonna last. Everybody has their niche and I think I found mine…there’s a niche in sad songs.”
To call Gauthier’s wrenching autobiographical songs “sad” is like calling Darfur a “conflict.” It is her bravery in the confession to her audience that she’s had to “live” what she wrote that makes the tales of heartbreak, loneliness, struggles with alcoholism, abandonment and redemption so powerful. Minnesota’s world-renowned substance abuse center, Hazelden, uses some of Gauthier’s songs in its therapy sessions.
Gauthier deftly and confidently conquered the trials of live performing and sounded as good as or better than her studio work. There is something truthful about a live performance—those instances when the voice cracks just enough to let you know that delivery is incredibly hard work and the artist is strong enough to get past the occasional falter. It is the human dimension that is so compelling, and with Gauthier’s deeply emotional content as well as her strong vocal presence, you have to wonder how she can do it for over an hour.
As she told the audience about a dangerously dark song written in the style of Flannery O’Connor, “it is deep seated southern misery.”
“Man-oh-man, this song scares me,” Gauthier half-joked.
Gauthier is no freeloader as a musician either. Her guitar work is strong—not an easy task when you have a demanding vocal to deliver. This reviewer grew up watching John Prine perform when he was still a mailman in the Chicago suburbs. He did some of his best work then and Gauthier far, far outstrips those early performances. Gauthier won’t like that sentence, but I’m leavin’ it in. She considers Prine a model and mentor.
Gauthier premiered a new song she wrote while vacationing in Provincetown. In a brief email after the show, she said “last night was the first time I payed it out, and I was hoping people would like it.”
Written after a frustrating year of months of travel in European venues—which seem to have embraced her more quickly than the American music mainstream—and not much time for songwriting, the Provincetown Song has Gauthier reclaiming her inspiration and motivation to write:
“I don’t trust my eyes anymore, they only notice what they’re looking for…I think my eyes are blinding me...some people never really love…they don’t mean the sweet words they say…other people can’t see the truth…I didn’t know I was that way.”
Gauthier wrote Prayer without Words with Tom Damphier and readers can find it on the Mercy Now CD, available on Gauthier’s website, along with a download. The studio version is wound tight, but the song has to be experienced in performance—no matter the combination of searing imagery with studio finesse, the kick-gut delivery in the virtual world makes you wonder if she sucks all the air out of the room in the real world.
For a sense of the May Gauthier experience in concert, we are streaming the audio for the Provincetown Song and Prayer without Words here, and added some FLASH so readers can get to know the performer.
Gauthier is on tour for a good part of the summer. Her schedule is posted on her website, www.marygauthier.com. Don’t rely totally on the virtual word. Technology is something else, but I would suspect she is even better in person. Go see her if you can.
Also check out Filth and Fire, which was named the Number One Independent CD of the Year in 2002 by the New York Times. Stark and downright beautiful writing dominates this album. For a singer/songwriter who describes herself as a “slow” writer, Gauthier cranks out perfect lyrics again in this, her third independently produced effort, before signing to Lost Highway. Skip right to track two, A Long Way to Fall, but go right back to Walk Through Fire, with an organ underlay that makes you feel the southern heat.
More than 2,500 songwriters appear each year at the Bluebird Café. The club is known for helping start the careers of such country artists as Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Trisha Yearwood and Kathy Mattea.
Gauthier’s show was sold out at 105 seats in the live venue, with 15 “virtual” visitors. Bluebird Café owner Amy Kurland said she feels the virtual audience will expand as they advertise through their email list of over 6,000.
SanSoft Inc., a virtual reality software company based in Franklin, Tennessee, has an exclusive agreement with the Bluebird Café to bring live performances to the Internet via Second Life and the World Wide Web. Second Life is a 3D virtual reality world program, but visitors to the Bluebird Café can access performances directly through their browsers at www.bluebirdcafesl.com/viewer. Second Life was created by Linden Labs. Link only works on performance days.
Additional Flash content by Ollie Moltaji
