Mary Gauthier - Live at Blue Rock (2012)

Twelve years and six albums into a fruitful career, New Orleans-born singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier releases her first live album, which features a selection of songs that have defined her troubled life thus far. Orphaned in New Orleans before being adopted, then raised in Baton Rouge followed by drugs, alcohol, halfway houses and rehabilitation, even spending her eighteenth birthday in jail, the rocky life of this true folk troubadour has been chronicled in her songs along the way. Recorded at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio just outside Austin, the eight original and three Fred Eaglesmith songs take us on an autobiographical journey, with stories of hobos, junkies, cigarette machines, drag queens and limousines, each demonstrating Gauthier's command over story-telling, whether the songs are hers or others.