Mindy Smith with Mary Gauthier
With an angelic voice and songs full of faith, grace and vulnerability, Mindy Smith has been embraced by critics and fans alike with each recording she unveils. With her fourth release, Stupid Love (Vanguard Records), Mindy takes another step forward both lyrically and musically. Written over a two year period, each of the fourteen tracks on the record delves into the various stages of relationships: the highs, the lows, the emotional investments made, how they can change us and move us forward. For Mindy, Stupid Love is a statement of where she is now as well as where she has been.
“There’s freedom in knowing that you don’t have to know it all,” Mary Gauthier says, “which is why to me, a song should end with a question, not an answer.” It might seem that after six groundbreaking albums of original songs, more than a dozen years of recording and touring around the world, a harvest of music industry awards, and covers of her songs by a roster of great artists – that Mary Gauthier (say it: go-shay) should have a handle on some of the big answers. Yet with each new album, with each new cycle of songs that illuminate her soul, with each old and new set of characters and life changes she introduces, Mary is always ending up with more questions. Where do her people come from and where do they go? How can they find shelter from the storm? What is the truth? On her newest album, The Foundling (to be released May 18, 2010), her first concept album, Mary opens the door on the defining circumstance of her life, the emotional journey and aftermath of finding the mother who surrendered her in New Orleans after her birth in March 1962 (the month Bob Dylan released his first album, to put a perspective on it).
On The Foundling, Mary explains via her website, “the songs tell the story of a kid abandoned at birth who spent a year in an orphanage and was adopted, who ran way from the adopted home and ended up in show business, who searched for birth parents late in life and found one and was rejected, and who came through the other side of all of this still believing in love.” Mary’s “compass” was Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger, his classic concept album of 1975 (with “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain”).
Written and recorded over the course of two years, The Foundling was produced in Toronto by Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies, using local musicians and his sister Margo Timmins on vocal harmonies. “Margo added another layer of emotional punch in the right places,” says Mary. She praises Mike’s ability “to capture my story and create moods around it, a dream soundscape. The musicians breathed their hearts and souls into my songs, and they brought them to life. I am pleased beyond my wildest dreams at how the record came out.”
Tickets are on sale now from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.
Mary Gauthier (born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1962) is an American folk singer/songwriter. Given up at birth by a mother she never knew, Mary was adopted. At age 15, she ran away from home and stole her parents' car, and spent the next several years in...
Art helps us articulate emotions. When complex feelings seem impossible to condense into words, we turn to musicians to speak on our behalf. On her new album, Stupid Love, Mindy Smith gives voice to the myriad sentiments, from elation to sorrow, that...
