An Evening with MARY GAUTHIER,
with guest Jaimee Harris
$10 of each ticket sale will go to SongwritingWith:Soldiers.
SongwritingWith:Soldiers is a nonprofit organization which transform lives by using collaborative songwriting to expand creativity, connections, and strengths, and with which Mary works very closely. – Mary Gauthier's latest album, Rifles and Rosary Beads, is the fruit of that work.
The performance begins at 8:00; doors open 30 minutes prior.
Online sales end at 6PM day of the show. Tickets available at the door unless sold out.
about MARY GAUTHIER and "Rifles and Rosary Beads"
marygauthier.com
Every day.
Every single day, which means some days are better and some much worse.
Every day, on average, twenty-two veterans commit suicide.
Every day.
That number does not include drug overdoses or car wrecks or any of the more inventive ways somebody might less obviously choose to die.
It seems trivial to suggest those lives might be saved — healed, even — by a song. By the process of writing a song.
And yet.
And yet there is nothing trivial about Mary Gauthier's tenth album, Rifles & Rosary Beads (Thirty Tigers), all eleven songs co-written with and for wounded veterans. Eleven of the nearly four hundred songs that highly accomplished songwriters have co-written as part of the five-year-old SongwritingWith:Soldiers program.
It has become a calling. “My job as a songwriter is to find that thing a soul needs to say,” Mary says. “Each retreat brings together a dozen or so soldiers and four songwriters, three songs each in two days. We don’t have a choice. We have to stay focused, listen carefully, and make sure every veteran gets their own song. And we always do.”
“None of the veterans are artists. They don’t write songs, they don’t know that songs can be used to move trauma. Their understanding of song doesn’t include that. For me it’s been the whole damn deal. Songwriting saved me. It’s what I think the best songs do, help articulate the ineffable, make the invisible visible, creating resonance, so that people, (including the songwriter) don’t feel alone.”
The impact of these songs becomes visible quickly, unexpectedly.
For more on Mary Gauthier and her album "Rifles and Rosary Beads," visit marygauthier.com
Photograph by LauraPartain
about JAIMEE HARRIS
jaimeeharris.com
Jaimee Harris is poised to become the next queen of Americana-Folk, a slightly edgier Emmylou Harris for the younger generation.
Her new album draws comparisons to Patty Griffin, Ryan Adams, and Kathleen Edwards – all writers who know how to craft a heartbreakingly beautiful song with just enough grit to keep you enthralled. Harris writes about the basic human experience, in a way that is simple, poetic, and often painfully relatable.
"You keep comin over... I keep goin under...
Harris isn’t afraid to get personal, but her vulnerability never veers into the self-indulgent. Each little confessional gem she puts out there is something the listener will connect to; these are things we’ve all felt, though many of us are less than likely to admit them.
“In a depressive state… how long will I feel this way?”
Photo by Brandon Aguilar
Harris's songs have a depth to them, and her lyrics betray a wisdom beyond her years. “I write as a way of dealing with things," she says. "There’s also a lot of acknowledging my own faults. These songs feel pretty vulnerable… to the point where I wonder if people are going to ask me ‘Are you okay?’ But I really just hope they see a little bit of themselves in the songs and find something they can connect to.”
