Sisters Folk Festival 2021 - Official Program

By Ceili Cornelius, Correspondent • The Nugget Newspaper

Mary Gauthier was saved by music. Her life before music was not one that she wanted anymore. Then she found songwriting. Not just the song itself, but the actual act of writing a song is what healed her.

Gauthier had a guitar first put in her hands at 12 years old and music offered an escape. During her mid-20s, she put her music on hold while working in the restaurant industry in Boston at her own establishment, called Dixie Kitchen.

After being arrested for drunk driving, she decided to get sober and turn her life around and found her calling for writing songs — not only because she enjoyed it, but because she needed to.

“My job as a songwriter is to find that thing a soul needs to say,” said Gauthier.

She has won multiple accolades and awards for her songwriting. Her latest record, Rifles and Rosaries, is one of her most unique songwriting experiences. As stated on her website: “All 11 songs [were] co-written with and for wounded veterans. Eleven of the nearly 400 songs that highly accomplished songwriters have co-written as part of the five-year-old Songwriting with Soldiers Program.”

“Songwriting is a way to connect and build a bridge with other people,” said Gauthier.

Gauthier is a skilled workshop leader and teacher, who has been a featured artist at the Americana Song Academy and Sisters Folk Festival. She is noted for her ability to communicate about both the nuts-and-bolts and the spiritual and emotional aspects of songwriting.

She decided to put her thoughts surrounding songwriting into a book which came out in July 2021, Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting. The book took her six years to write after a publisher approached her to lay out her teaching in a book that could reach a wider audience.

“The publisher told me I could reach more students than I ever could in a lifetime by writing a book,” said Gauthier.

Gauthier realized she could not pass up the opportunity. The book is about songwriting and recovery and the use of the arts for both the artist and the fan in the recovery process.

“I talk a lot about the redemptive power of song, and the goal is to talk about music and song on a different level. There is something magical about a song’s ability to connect us,” she said.

Her book is part memoir, part philosophy of art, and part nuts-and-bolts of songwriting.

Gauthier will be instructing at the Americana Song Academy this year ahead of Sisters Folk Festival at House on Metolius. Her workshop will be focused on “manifesting creative courage.”

“I teach in my workshops, I teach courage, I encourage courage working with songwriters of all ages,” said Gauthier.

She encourages young songwriters to put something on the line and say something that matters to them and teaches how to dig deep and be brave in putting forth their song to the world.

“I typically start with a sit-down chat and listen to a song and give feedback, take questions, etc.” she said.

She sometimes comes up with a prompt and has the artist come back with something off that prompt to share with the class. Gauthier will be bringing that curriculum to this year’s song academy.

The book is also part memoir, telling her story about her own struggles with addiction and how songwriting helped save her and turn her life around.

During the pandemic, Gauthier pivoted her performance style to an online platform.

“We really didn’t take much time off, we had a few weeks to figure out exactly how I would still perform, and then we just went right into the online world of performance,” said Gauthier. Gauthier performed via Zoom and Facebook every week and was able to broadcast her shows all over the world. “We could really broadcast without borders, people had a huge need to connect with music during that time,” said Gauthier. Since last year, she has begun to start touring in person for her latest record. This will be Gauthier’s second time performing at Sisters Folk Festival. “I can’t wait to get back to that sweet town and that glorious festival,” said Gauthier. “It is good to get together in these still uncertain times and I am super excited to be a part of it.”

Mary Gauthier’s book, Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting, is available at Paulina Springs Books, 252 W. Hood Ave. in Sisters.