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Lost and Foundling


MARY GAUTHIER X390 (FAIR, I HOPE) | ADVOCATE.COM

Mary Gauthier’s life has been the stuff of heartbreaking songs. Frequently dubbed one of America’s greatest folk singer-songwriters, Gauthier was given up for adoption at birth and raised in a troubled, conservative household in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Struggling with growing up gay, she turned to liquor and drugs, ran away from home at 15, lived with six drag queens for a year, and spent her 18th birthday in jail.

At 35, after having been a chef and restaurateur, Gauthier wrote her first song, and she’s been on a roll since. Her first label album, Mercy Now, won rave reviews, was placed on dozens of top-10 lists, and many saw her as a latter-day Johnny Cash.

Her confessional songs are often expose raw nerves, and trace unrequited love, nasty breakups, and hitting the bottle. On her newest album The Foundling, Gauthier, now 20 years sober, focuses her unflinching gaze on a topic she’s been struggling to write about since she began performing: being abandoned as a baby. It was a chance visit to the orphanage where she spent most of her first year, and a troubled first (and only) contact with her birth mother that provided the spark she needed to create the album.

While in Los Angeles performing, Gauthier spoke about The Foundling, which is available in stores and online now.

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Randall
    Date posted: 7/23/2010 10:27:37 AM
    Hometown: Oakland/London

    Comment:

    As a gay dad through open adoption to two beautiful sons, I cringe every time I read or hear the phrase, "given up for adoption." Children are not pets or objects to be given from one person to another. We firmly believe in the adoption triad equally comprised of birth family, adoptive family and child. It was only after holding our sons for the first time we realised, that on a very profound level, they "chose" us instead of the other way around. It was not an easy journey, and our sons had a very rough start to life. But we are grateful every day that their birth mother entrusted with the sacred duty of raising these children.



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