Mary Gauthier

[ Mary Gauthier (born March 1962 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American folk singer-songwriter. Given up at birth by a mother she never knew, Mary was adopted by an Italian Catholic couple in Thibodaux, Louisiana. At age 15, she ran away from home and stole her parents' car, and spent the next several years in drug rehabilitation, halfway houses, and living with friends; she spent her 18th birthday in jail. These experiences provided fodder for her songwriting later on (particularly her song "Drag Queens in Limousines"). Later on, she enrolled at Louisiana State University as a philosophy major. She opened a Cajun restaurant in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, Dixie Kitchen (also the title of her first album). She wrote her first song at age 35.

After the release of her first album, she sold her share in the restaurant to finance her second album, Drag Queens in Limousines. The summer of the release of this album, she was invited to play 11 major folk festivals, including Newport Folk Festival. Drag Queens in Limousines won in The 1st Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Song. In 2002 her third album,"Filth and Fire" was named Best Indy CD of the year by Jon Pareles of the New York Times. She moved to Nashville,TN and secured a record deal with Lost Highway, a division of Universal Music. She also secured a publishing deal with Harlan Howard Songs. Her first major label release' "Mercy Now" was on the top 10 list for the year 2005 in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, The LA Times, New York Daily News, and Billboard Magazine. She was awarded New Artist of the year by The Americana Music Association in 2005. Her second Lost Highway release, "Between Daylight and Dark" came out September 2007. She has had her songs recorded by numerous artists, including Jimmy Buffett, Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Bill Chambers and Candi Staton.

From Wikipedia