Mary Gauthier, Lynn Miles, Eliza Gilkyson
Aladdin Theater
06/24/2014 08:00 PM PDT
$30.00 adv/dos
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Mary Gauthier
In conversation and in public, Mary Gauthier comes off as a practical, no-nonsense woman. Stoic, even. Which wouldn't seem unusual, except for the fact that her songs carry so much emotional punch, they can leave you staggering. She has a way of burrowing into that hole so many of us carry inside our souls, and emerging with universal truths that show we aren't so alone after all.
Gauthier knows where our exposed nerve endings lie because she's probed her own so deeply, finally learning to unlock the fear and loneliness that controlled her escape-seeking trajectory for so long before songwriting — and the sobriety that drew it forth at age 35 — gave her a steadier flight path.
But even though her six albums have received countless accolades (2005's Mercy Now earned her the Americana Music Association's New/Emerging Artist of the Year title, and 2011's The Foundling was named the No. 3 Record of the Year by the L.A. Times), Gauthier felt she needed to rack up her pilot hours, so to speak, before she could hit another major milestone: recording a live album. When she was ready, she captured Live at Blue Rock at a concert at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio in Wimberley, Texas, outside of Austin.
"People have been asking for a live CD for a long time and I just knew that I wasn't ready yet," admits Gauthier. "It took 10 years of trench work. Of bein' out there, banging my head against all the things an artist has to bang against. Indifference. Poor attendance. Situations that are over your head. Every night, curve ball, curve ball, curve ball. But stagecraft cannot be taught. You have to be onstage to learn it. So after 10 years of doin' it, I got good at it."
Louisiana native-turned-Nashville resident Gauthier (it's French; pronounced Go-SHAY), whose songs have earned praise from Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, and been recorded by Jimmy Buffett, Blake Shelton and many others, is not bragging, just explaining, in that practical way of hers. It's the same way she discusses experiences that led to some of the extraordinary songs she performs on the album. Renowned songs, such as "I Drink," "Drag Queens in Limousines" and "Karla Faye" — which addresses the famous fate of that convicted killer, but starts out with lines that undoubtedly reference their author as well: A little girl lost, her world full of pain. He said it feels good, she gave him her vein.
Then there's "Blood on Blood," from her last release, 2010's The Foundling, which plumbs the particular hell of children given up to closed adoption. With a cinematographer's eye and a lyrical economy that suggests far more than her 15 years of songwriting experience, she chronicles an always-present sense of rejection and rootlessness, the nagging "whys" and "what ifs," the endless search of every face for a possible resemblance. I don't know who I am I don't know who I'm not/I don't know my name I can't find my place, she sings, her voice rising from a whisper to a wail. She's not just offering a vein here, she's cutting several wide open. Like all of her songs, "Blood on Blood" takes on even more power when performed live.
"As a songwriter, I'm always trying to go to the deepest possible place inside of me. Past the navel-gazing, past the self-conscious, to get to that 'we,'" Gauthier explains. "'Cause deep inside of all of us is the universal. And that is an artist's job, to transcend the self. … I'm in there, but then hopefully, it goes past that and it hits something far, far bigger and more important than me. That's what I'm aimin' for every time I write."
She's proud that The Foundling opened the floodgates for thousands of fellow orphans who had never heard anyone articulate their pain with so much insight. Gauthier reports therapists are now using the album to better understand the adoptee experience. It's also resulted in several reunions between children and their birth parents — though Gauthier's birth mother declined that option after Gauthier made contact five years ago. And she understands that decision, even if she'll never have the full closure she sought.
Sometimes, life just goes that way — particularly for the outsiders with whom Gauthier has always identified most. They populate Live at Blue Rock, which also contains covers of three songs by fellow poet/philosopher (and recent "Tin Can Caravan" tour leader) Fred Eaglesmith, another master at illuminating the sympathetic sides of characters society is not used to regarding kindly, if at all.
"I find the stories I want to tell are the stories of characters who may or may not make it," says Gauthier. Though she's no longer dangling on that precipice, she adds, "I believe in redemption. I needed redemption; I continue to need redemption."
Luckily, she sometimes finds it onstage, in front of an audience. And just as audiences change from night to night, so do her accompanists.
When Live at Blue Rock was recorded, she had fiddle and percussion adornment. But she's experimenting with different configurations all the time, which means the songs also take on new identities nightly.
"They're living things," Gauthier says of her work. "You record 'em one way, but that's just the way you played it that day. Some words change, the tempo changes. It has to go with the flow of the room and the flow of the night."
Gauthier, a teen runaway who attended college in Louisiana and operated a Cajun restaurant in Boston before getting sober, long ago learned how to go with the flow. And to be patient. Because it takes time to get good enough to wing it.
—By Lynne Margolis
Lynn Miles
“Lynn Miles is one of the most acclaimed songwriters to cross the border since Joni Mitchell.” - Dallas Morning News
There is something to be said for experience, for taking the time to grow into your own skin. All sturdy things need time to root firmly into the ground to find their strength. Lynn Miles is one of Canada?s most accomplished singer/songwriters. With ten albums to her credit.
In 2013 Lynn took home Solo Artist of the Year for Downpour, a remarkable collection of music celebrating our fragile, flawed and beautiful world. She was also awarded The Helen Verger Award, in 2013 at The Ottawa Folk Festival, which is presented each year to an individual who has made significant, sustained contributions to folk/roots music in Canada.
The winner of multiple Canadian Folk Music Awards, and a 2003 Juno Award for Roots & Traditional Solo Album of the Year, she has certainly found her strength over time.
Through a career that has seen her move from Ottawa to Los Angeles and back again, with stops in Nashville and Austin, she has always written music with unbridled feeling and vulnerability.
Miles has consistently been unflinching in putting herself out there. Now with her Eleventh studio offering "Downpour", the voice of her experience has truly elevated her songwriting to it’s richest depth of emotion.
While her melodies undulate between traditional country and folk roots, on "Downpour", it’s her sensitivity to the world around her, and the human heart, that pours itself directly into Miles’ music to make it stand out.
Therein is the powerful secret behind Miles’ music - her astute observations of life, its trials and triumphs, are the hallmark of sincerity in her music. The gritty honesty of her music never falters – neither does her unshakeable ability to make even the most melancholy lyrics sound as if they are brimming with hope and grace.
Lynn Miles is a musician in the rarest sense of the word, an unmistakable talent, an eye for both the subtle and sweet that can only be unearthed with experience.
"If it is possible to be addicted in one single hearing, that's how hard I fell for Miles music and voice" Arthur Wood, Maverick Magazine
“Lynn’s music often draws on her love of literature and poetry, but her magic as a songwriter is also in her ability to take life experiences and interpret them in a way that people relate to.” - The Tennessean
Eliza Gilkyson
Eliza Gilkyson is a Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and activist who has become one of the most respected musicians in Folk, Roots and Americana circles. The daughter of legendary songwriter Terry Gilkyson, Eliza entered the music world as a teenager, recording demos for her father. Since then she has released 20 recordings of her own, and her songs have been covered by Joan Baez, Bob Geldof, Tom Rush and Rosanne Cash and have been used in films, PBS specials and on prime-time TV.
Eliza has appeared on NPR, Austin City Limits, Mountain Stage, etown, XM Radio, Air America Radio and has toured worldwide as a solo artist and in support of Richard Thompson, Patty Griffin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Dan Fogelberg, as well as with the Woody Guthrie review, Ribbon of Highway-Endless Skyway, alongside the Guthrie Family, Jimmy Lafave, Slaid Cleaves, and special guests Pete Seeger, Jackson Browne and Kris Kristofferson. She has been inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame in the company such legends as Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt and Nanci Griffith and is an ongoing winner of the Austin Chronicle’s various music awards, as well as Folk Alliance awards for Best Artist, Best Songwriter and Record of the Year.
Her CD Land of Milk and Honey was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Eliza’s meditative “Requiem,” written as a prayer for those who lost their lives in the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia, was recorded by the internationally recognized choral group Conspirare, whose version was nominated for a Grammy and won the prestigious Edison Award in Europe. The song has become a standard in choir repertory the world over. Two of her songs appeared on Joan Baez’ Grammy-nominated CD, Day After Tomorrow. In addition to touring in support of her previous release, Roses at the End of Time, in 2011 and 2012 Eliza and label-mates John Gorka and Lucy Kaplansky performed as “Folk Super Trio” Red Horse, a side project whose CD stayed for months at the top of the Folk Music Charts. Eliza recently was invited to contribute a track on the Jackson Browne tribute, Looking Into You (due to be released in early 2014), along with Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Sara Watkins, Shawn Colvin, Bonnie Raitt and others. Her latest release on Red House Records, The Nocturne Diaries, produced by her son Cisco Ryder, is a restless contemplative work inspired by the converging forces of her highest hopes and darkest fears.
Eliza is an active member of the Austin music and political community, including the environmental organization Save Our Springs (www.sosalliance.org), and she is a co-founder of www.5604manor.org , an Austin-based resource center that promotes political activism and community involvement around issues of race, patriarchy and global injustice.
Venue Information
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave.
Portland, OR 97202
http://www.aladdin-theater.com/