Mary Gauthier

Mary Gauthier

Mary Gauthier is an American singer-songwriter working in country and folk, with a style also associated with alt-country and Americana. She is from New Orleans and was born in 1962. She is an out lesbian and her surname is pronounced “go-chay”.

Early life

Gauthier is adopted and is given up at birth by a mother she never knows. At 15, she runs away from home and steals her parents’ car. She spends the following years in detox, halfway houses and living with friends, and spends her 18th birthday in jail. These experiences later feed into her songwriting, including the song “Drag Queens in Limousines”.

Education and early work

She enrols at Louisiana State University as a philosophy major, but leaves after five years because of drug problems and moves to Boston. She works in restaurants, first as a waitress and later as a manager. With financial backing, she attends the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts and opens a Cajun restaurant in Boston’s Back Bay called Dixie Kitchen, which also gives its name to her first album.

Songwriting and recordings

Gauthier writes her first song at 35. After the release of her first album, she sells her share of the restaurant to help finance her second album, Drag Queens in Limousines. Her debut album includes the songs “Goddamn HIV” and “Skeleton Town”, both of which deal with AIDS.