Spotlight Album Review: Mary Gauthier "Dark Enough to See the Stars"

Mary Gauthier has been known for her honest but sometimes downbeat songs. She wrote about running away from home, being a foundling, and, more recently, telling the stories of wounded warriors and their families on Rifles & Rosary Beads, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album and won Album of the Year at the International Folk Music Awards. So the first thing you notice on her new album, Dark Enough to See the Stars, is a shift in tone. No more “the lesbian Leonard Cohen,” as she once described herself. Now she’s Ms. Happy!

What explains the change? In a word, love. For several years now Mary has been in a relationship with Jaimee Harris, a talented Texas singer-songwriter who’s moved to Nashville to share her life with Mary. You can feel it on the first song, “Fall Apart World,” where Mary sings “Walking round with a big smile, it’s been a long while…You’re my girl, in this broken heart fall apart world.” Jaimee joins Mary on guitar and vocals, as she does on most of the songs. Allison Moorer also supplies background vocals on this and other songs. Danny Mitchell contributes keys on most of the songs, giving a Blonde on Blonde sonic quality to the album.

Two other key players are Ben Glover and Neilson Hubbard. Ben is an expat Irishman based in Nashville and a first-rate songwriter He co-wrote “Fall Apart World” and three other songs the album. Neilson is a drummer, a member of The Orphan Brigade (with Ben and Josh Britt), and, most important, an in-demand producer. He produced Rifles & Rosary Beads and Amy Speace’s last two albums, Me and the Ghost of Charlemagne and Tucson, as well as albums for Sam Baker, Kim Richey, and more. Mary says Neilson makes everyone comfortable in the studio and brings out the best in people. That’s certainly apparent in the vibe of Dark Enough to See the Stars.

Another love song is “Thank God for You,” inspired by Jaimee and co-written with Mary, Caleb Elliott, and Peter Case. Mary refers to her sordid past…

I was just another junkie jonesing on a Greyhound bus
With a twenty-year ticket to a tortured mind
Sirens, sorrow, cigarette butts
My Jesus in pieces, broken as the highway lines

…but offers redemption:

You gave me something no one can take away
You saw thru me and loved me anyway

Thank God for you I thank God for you

Beyond love, there is a sense of loss on the album, as Mary has experienced so much death over the last two years. Mary and Jaimee share heartbreaking details of a friend’s funeral on “How Could You Be Gone.” Like so many other people, Mary was devastated by John Prine’s death. When I first heard Mary at Falcon Ridge in 2002, his influence was obvious in her writing: the straightforward but engaging melodies and the deceptive simplicity of the lyrics. Mary continues to acknowledge John’s presence (a chapter of Mary excellent memoir, Saved By a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting, cites “Sam Stone” as transformative). The new album closes with a benediction, clearly aimed at John. Co-written by Ben Glover, it’s like “Forever Young” crossed with an Irish blessing (appropriate for John, who married Fiona, an Irish woman and spent 20 summers with his family in County Galway):

May eternity hold you in the hollow of her hand
May a soft wind enfold you as you travel distant lands
May the moon and stars delight you as the daylight dims
Till the morning sun warms your face, till I see you again

Mary takes seriously her role as a troubadour. As she says in Saved by the Song, she puts the “true” in “troubadour.” In a co-write with Darden Smith and Pat Manhoefer she compares the life on the road in “Truckers and Troubadours.” The title track takes its title from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “mountain top speech.” Co-written by Beth Nielsen Chapman, it offers hope through grief at a time of personal and political despair:

At the bottom of my tears, on the backside of my fears
At the center of the pain, I hear my voice call out your name
Days go by, nothing works, I can't believe how much this hurts
I don't know where you are, it's dark enough to see the stars

The song goes on to say “a soul is born to fly.” Mary lifts her spirits, and ours, with this most life-affirming and masterful album, a testament to the healing power of music.

(Photo by Laura E. Partain)