CD REVIEW: Gauthier takes listeners on journey born in darkness

By Diana Nollen

Many artists, especially folk singers, give us glimpses into their lives. Few bare their souls the way Mary Gauthier does on “The Foundling.”

This may very well be the most personal, heartbreaking music collection I've ever heard. It's achingly beautiful.

Gauthier (go-SHAY) has been very open in media interviews about her troubled youth, beginning with being adopted into a chaotic household; her life as a teenage runaway; her addictions; arrests for theft and drunken driving; and her path to a new, sober life.

All of that and more is woven through her seventh CD and first concept album. Filled with passion, she often surrounds the most painful lyrics with music conveying a lovely or joyous spirit. It's when you listen through the layers of instrumentals that you see her soul.

She begins the title track with a quiet a cappella intro before adopting a sort of French chanson or gypsy vagabond feel. That tone so perfectly captures the life she would lead after being born to an unwed mother in 1962, spending her first year in a New Orleans orphanage, then fleeing her adoptive family at age 15.

The next cut, “Mama Here, Mama Gone” is gentle and soothing, almost like a lullaby, but masking the harrowing emotions of feeling abandoned. She then breaks into a bluegrass sizzle for “Goodbye,” with the searing lyrics “Goodbye could have been my family name.” She tosses a little Cajun spice into the mix for “Sideshow,” her ode to where the wounded go.

The mood becomes darker as she moves into her efforts to find her birth mother, which led to a phone call where she just couldn't bridge the chasm of shame engulfing the woman who buried her secret child deep inside herself.

Gauthier hits the rock bottom of disappointment with the mournful, utterly shattered tone of “Walk in the Water.” Then we hear her start to work through her demons with moments of self-realization. Buoyed by lush accompaniments, she builds to the up-tempo “Another Day Borrowed,” as she's emerging out of the darkness and into the light.

This song cycle is an amazing accomplishment and we're the lucky ones invited to share her journey, on this CD, being released May 18, 2010, and in concert at 8 p.m. Friday, May 7, 2010, at CSPS in Cedar Rapids.

 FAST TAKEInformation: www.legionarts.org/music/Gauthier.htm and www.marygauthier.com

Title: “The Foundling”

Artist: Mary Gauthier

Label: Razor & Tie

Release date: May 18, 2010

Performance: 8 p.m. Friday, May 7, 2010, with Mindy Smith, at CSPS, 1103 Third St. SE, Cedar Rapids

Tickets: $17 advance at www.midwestix.com or $21 at the door