Mary Gauthier

Attention Songwriters (and those want to give it a try!)

Please come join us for a Week Long Songwriting Workshop In Costa Rica December 27 2010 thru January 1 2011. My friend Chris Williamson and I want to invite you to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ring in the New Year 2011 focused on your creativity, high on a mountain in Costa Rica. We will be leading a group of aspiring songwriters into the realm of the sacred at 5000 feet above sea level.  Warm, sunny and beautiful,  Pura Vida Yoga Spa is located on a gated, 8-acre mountainside estate in Costa Rica’s Alajuela province. The focus of this workshop will be to help students delve deep into the well of their own creativity to access their own writer’s voice and create from their hearts.

Note from Mary: This will be my third year in a row teaching songwriting over the holidays at Pura Vida, and I am very much looking forward to returning. Every year here has been wonderful…. watching the students gain confidence in their ability, hearing their songs improve, watching a community of artists form as people reach out and support each others’ efforts, watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks in the city below from the spa’s hot tub high up on the mountain, savouring the amazing healthy food the chefs prepare for us three times a day… Heaven! For anyone not familiar with Cris Williams, check this out: Cris Williams Retrospective

Note from Cris: I’ve taught songwriting in various places around the world, but I suspect none more exotic than the one Mary and I will be teaching in Costa Rica.  I’ve traveled there and seen its beauty.  I am so looking forward to spending days and nights in Pura Vida, a place that offers the “pure life” in so many ways.  Songwriting is a distilled form of communication, and a real craft combining poetry and music.  Add the natural beauty of the surroundings and the food, and you’ve got something not to be missed. What a gift! Come and join us!

If you’ve been thinking about taking a songwriting workshop, but have felt unsure, we encourage you to take the leap of faith this year and come with us. Starting the year focused on what’s important (creativity, community, health of mind, body & spirit) sets the tone for the rest of the year. Your pilgrimage to Costa Rica will reset your compass, with the reminder that life is so much richer than we are often aware of, that we are indeed co-creators of our world, and what a beautiful world it is!

Includes:

- 5 night accommodations

- Daily classes, discussions with Mary and Cris leading the workshops

- 3 wholesome, healthy & delicious meals per day…amazing fresh & local food, prepared by local chefs three times a day, with plenty of fruits, vegetables, salads as well as    fish and chicken

- Opportunities to work on your songs with the teachers

- A nightly open mic for the class to share their songs with each other

- A supportive and festive community

- A retreat space that encourages creative energy flow

- A day off to go whitewater rafting, or go to the beach, or to see a volcano, or to the rain forest…or to the hot springs…or the waterfall gardens

- Plenty options for the best body/energy work anywhere! (the spa is on-site)

- Yoga, swimming pool, hot tub, fire pit, tour of the coffee fields….

- A special workshop on accompaniment with Grammy award nominee and Juno award winner Tania Elizabeth

- A final evening concert that Mary and Cris will put on for the entire retreat community

- The perfect viewpoint for the amazing New Year’s Eve San Jose fireworks celebration

Prices are all inclusive (excluding airfare). The price depends of what type of room you choose. We encourage you to bring a friend, your partner and/or spouse (space-mate). They will love the bodywork and sit happily by the pool while you work on your songs, and you can share three meals a day with them in the dining room.  Or, you can venture into the songwriting experience together. Our pricing and packages are set up to accommodate your choice of participation.

Pricing:

Double and single pricing includes workshop. Spacemate does not include workshop.

Make your reservation today! Call:  888-767-7375 | Fax: 770-785-9260 | reservations@puravidaspa.com www.puravidaspa.com

I ran into my friend Tift Merrrit in London, we were both on a publicity tour for new releases, and we were staying in the same hotel, right next to the BBC Broadcasting building. We managed to find a time to go out for Chinese food, and she asked me if I’d join her in her room the next morning for yet another interview, this time, with her. She has a fine radio show, and I was happy to able to work this interview with Tift into my schedule.

Here it is, I hope ya’ll like it..

Marfa Spark KRTS 93.5 Tift Merrit interviews yours truly.

Tania and I played this morning on historic WSM radio, home of the Grand Old Opry Radio show. They are broadcasting from the original home again these days, because the flood took out the new building. It felt like a short walk thru the history of Country Music. WSM is the reason Nashville ended up as the Business center of country music.

Last night, Buddy Miller performed another installment of his three part series/artist in Residence at The Country Music Hall Of Fame, and my friend Darrell Scott invited me to come down..here’s a shot of the band. Buddy Miller, Darrell Scott, Patty Griffin, Regina and Ann McCrary and Byron House and Brian Owens.

Tonight we play a benefit concert at the Loveless Barn for the Nature Conservancy.  What an honor to be part of such a great group of artists, activists and industry folks who care about each other and the world and are working to improve it! Living in Nashville can be wonderful, and today is one of those days!

Here is an interview with Here and Now, from NPR station WBUR in Boston. Scroll down a little, and hit the play button, and there it sits. Till it doesn’t anymore.   LIVE ON HERE AND NOW

Played tonight in Charlotte, at The Evening Muse. A split bill with Peter Case. The weather was wild, lightening thunder, wind and plenty rain. A summer squall roared thru, with a pretty big back end punch.

It was wonderful to see Peter again, he looks great and sounds great, he had a fantastic little rock band with him and he was jamming out on an electric guitar. YEA!

I met several adoptees tonight at the show, and some folks active in the AAC ( American Adoption Congress).

Also, my mother drove up to see Tania and I play. She sat beaning from the third row, and it was fun to have her there. Of course she held court after I was done and told people stories, and several people told her their stories. It was a good night. I think the weather worked in my favor. I never did have the right songs for a sunny summer day….my songs sing better in the rain. The bigger the storm, the better my songs sing. it’s always been that way.

Off to the airport in the morning for my first trip to the Michigan Women’s Music Festival. Looking forward to the adventure!

Today NPR ran another interview with me, this one on Here and Now.   I like how they edited it, we taped for about a half hour and they edited it down to a manageable 10 minutes or so. I am thrilled to be on the show, it’s a first for me. Two NPR interviews in a short period of time is unheard of, not sure how the heck my publicist pulled it off, but I am grateful.

Also, The Advocate came to my hotel in Santa Monica and shot some video of me and Tania playing The Orphan King sitting on the bed in my room, and we videotaped a Q and A session as well out in the Courtyard. I think both sessions came out well.

We’re working our way up the coast, playing shows all the way up. The West Coast is fantastic this time of year, cool at night, beautiful during the day. I played in San Diego, then two sold out shows in LA at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, the a couple days off at my friend Lana Lewis’s great little inn on the water outside of Santa Cruz in Capitola The Monarch Cove Inn, then up to San Francisco and then Eugene where we played a great house concert hosted by Michael Strain. To get there we drove thru the Redwood Forest, up the Avenue of the Giants, where we witnessed the giant redwoods, just amazing.

The beautiful artwork from The Foundling that Lilli Carre created (under the art direction of Gail Marowitz) was recreated by Lisa Beyer for our in-store at Millenium Music in Portland, OR today. NICE!

Millenium Record Shop Portland OR.

My friends in the Adoptee Rights Coalition are holding a protest in Louisville this July, as they continue working hard to get our birth certificates unsealed. Adoptees in the US  in all but 6 states are not allowed access to our original birth certificates, and we feel it’s way past time to open up the records. More info HERE. It affects me personally, cause I wanna know who my dad is. I want a copy of my original birth certificate, but the state will not give it to me.

Ever wonder about the article that inspired me to write the song The Last Of The Hobo Kings? Here it is in the NY Times Archives. A great story on Steam Train Maury, even if it is his obituary.

Here’s a video link, live footage from the Joe’s Public Theater gig Tania and I did in NYC a few weeks ago. I don’t look too old or too fat, and I am not singing too flat. These are the things I look for in Mary Gauthier Video’s..LOL!

I just got an e-mail from my friend Jason Wilbur who plays guitar for John Prine that the radio interview I did with him is now edited, up and running. He’s not only a great guitar player, he’s a great radio host. Here’s the link to his show, In Search of A Song

On another note, it’s they day before we head out West, and I am ready to roll. I’m starting the next leg of the tour in San Diego July 9th, then two shows in LA on the 10th and 11th, then I work my way up the coast for a couple weeks, ending up in BC at a little folk festival in Duncan, on Vancouver Island. I’ve been home for about two weeks, and thats enough for me. I wanna get going again, get on the plane and go do what I love, play songs for people.

It’s a great time of year to be on the West Coast, and i am looking forward to three days in Santa Cruz and a show there..walks on the beach, great vegetarian food, and re-connecting with friends along the way. I love my job, I love knowing people all over the world, I love being a citizen of the world. I’ve just found out that i be be returning to Australia and Europe in the next few months, and that’s good news to my ears.

I’m trying to be better about taking and posting pictures…here’s a shot from a festival we played outside of LA called Stage Coach. We played the same day as Brooks and Dunn and Toby Keith. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, me playing that festival…but it worked out great. They ( the big famous Country music Stars) played at night, we played during the day, and everyone got along just fine. Every day is an adventure on the road to God Know Where. It even got me a big feature write up in the LA Times.

More soon…..

Mary

Ed, Mary and Tania Elizabeth/ Stage Coach Festival 2010

The 11th Annual Roots On The River in Bellows Falls VT took place June 11,12 and 13, and for the 6th time I was honored to share the all acoustic Meetinghouse Show with Fred, in the old Meetinghouse on the hill. Tania Elizabeth and I had a great time performing in the church, as the rain softly fell outside keeping the temperature down and the mood perfect for songs from The Foundling.

Fred was his usual amazing self, and put on a heck of a show, then was off to NYC to tape Letterman, which I watched last night, he nailed it. I am more than a little proud of him. I met Fred when Charlie Hunter invited me to play the first annual Roots on The River event 11 years ago, and he’s been my mentor for a decade now. YEA FRED! Rock on!

Here’s the link to Fred on Letterman.

Roots On The River 2010

We’ve added a page to my facebook account, and would be most grateful if you;d post your own adoption story there if you have one…here’s the link

Also, My friend the Australian adoption writer Evelyn Robinson is asking  people who are members of the adoption triad to submit their stories for possible inclusion in her upcoming book. I’ve read her work, and I find her to be a very good writer, and a deeply compassionate and wise person, an expert on adoption, and a friend to all members of the triad.

I received this request from her, and I want to pass it on:

Adoption Separation

Those of us who were separated from our children by adoption are very aware of society’s attitudes to single parenthood in the 20^th century. Many of us are ageing and our experiences are barely comprehensible to members of the current generation, who have grown up in a very different social context. Single parenthood is now generally tolerated and supported to the extent that, in some places, single people are permitted to adopt.

I believe that recording and publishing our stories is an important way to validate our experiences. It is also a valuable educational exercise to illustrate the attitudes to single parenthood which were prevalent in the last century, especially in the 1960s and 1970s when so many children were adopted. It is difficult for our children and grandchildren to understand the socially intolerant climate in which our pregnancies occurred and the only people who can explain that to them are those of us who experienced society’s disapproval and often lost our children because of it. In line with the social values of the times, single parents were discriminated against and treated in different ways from parents who were married. In many cases they were denied what in the 21st century is perceived as social justice.

I plan to publish a collection of narratives written by parents who have been separated from their children by adoption. I am hoping to obtain contributions fromAustralia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Ireland to illustrate the similarities in adoption experiences in the major English-speaking countries. As far as I am aware, this is the first time that such a collection has been produced.

It is my hope that the collection will educate our children, our friends and families, our communities, as well as professionals who may be working with those have experienced adoption separation. I would like to produce a permanent record of how it felt to be pregnant at a time when single parents were blamed and shamed by an unforgiving society.

For further information, please contact me by e-mail to erobinson@clovapublications.com or by mail to PO Box 328, Christies Beach, South Australia 5165. For further information about me and my work, please visit my web site at http://www.clovapublications.com.

I would appreciate it if this information could be distributed as widely as possible.

Evelyn Robinson, June, 2010

Big Big Picture

My run of dates in Europe have been wonderful, the venue’s have been amazing, the food, the audience’s…all lovely. The show in Stockholm made a giant billboard picture of me for promotion, it has to be the biggest picture of me I’ve ever seen. We teamed up with a Swedish group called Society’s Stepchildren, who are working for the rights of foster children of Sweden, and working to get restitution for people who were abused in the system. There is an ongoing investigation into the governments practices around fostering and children’s homes in Sweden, and one of the government investigators came to the show. I had a good meeting with him, and I had an amazing evening overall, I met so many people who moved me with their stories.

We then went to play in Holland, and the first gig was in an old church/nunnery that was used as an orphanage and home for children with special needs, for a hundred years or so nuns took care of children in the building where I played, the marble stairs were worn down from all the years of nuns and children going up and down there. The Nazi’s bombed the orphanage during the war  ( it’s only a few kilometers from Germany), and the building was in disrepair for many years. It’s been build back up, and they  hold many different kinds of shows there every season. Playing The Foundling in that church was spooky and electric for me, we had candles burning on stage and throughout the room, and I could feel the history of the place inside me.

The next night we played a church in Amsterdam from the 17th century , Amstelkerk built in 1666. The show was produced and promoted by The Paradiso, and they did a great job for us. Once again, the room was perfect for The Foundling songs, from the stage we faced a beautiful old organ with huge pipes on the wall, it was fantastic AND walking distance from the hotel, which is always nice. After soundcheck we went to drink coffee at an old bar that had a jazz band, we sat in there by an open window and listened to music and watched the rain for a couple hours, then went and played our show. What a wonderful day, I loved it. Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities in the world, it’s so diverse and welcoming and open. I love the crooked buildings, the cafe’s the shopping, the food….and the Dutch people. I can’t wait to come back again.