A Conversation with Mary Gauthier (continued)

PM: What have you been reading lately?

MG: Let's see. I picked up this book at the airport that I'm just devouring. It's by Bruce Feiler, and it's called something like Dreaming Out Loud: the Changing Face of Nashville. It's being compared to Mansion on the Hill and Hitmen. It sort of chronicles how country music got so bad. And it makes really good sense. He has very, very good access to the players who are integral to the scene. And I'm loving it.

I just finished another book called Dry. It's about this guy [Augusten Burroughs] who writes really comically about going into detox. He's the ad exec. I mean, I didn't think it was funny going into detox, myself. And for him to make it funny is fun to read. [laughs] I didn't see any humor in it, you know? But reading his version of it has been great. I'm always reading something. I think it's important for me to keep new information coming in.

PM: Yeah, yeah. If you're going to be on output as much as an artist likes to be, you've got to get a lot of input, I think.

MG: Yeah, I think that's important.

PM: Since you're a creature capable of bold moves and extreme changes, are things maybe outside of music you'd like to explore or maybe attempt in the future?

MG: I never know. I never know what's next. Each day is a mystery to me. I don't know what's next. I've actually been offered the opportunity to co-write with Harlan Howard.

PM: How do you do that? [as the legend is no longer of this world--Harlan passed away in 2002]

MG: Well, Harlan used to write in bars. And he used to do a lot of writing on bar napkins.

PM: Yeah.

MG: And his widow has given me the access to boxes of stuff that Harlan wrote that hadn't been finished.

PM: Oh, my Lord!

MG: So I'm going through it and culling out stuff that I think I can finish. And I've got a couple of them done already. And I think we're going to have a CD coming up called Bar Napkins.

PM: Oh, my God, that's unbelievable. Thank you for sharing that with us.

MG: When I read some of these things he wrote, and I think it's just incredible how similar we are. He was thrown around social services for a number of years when he was a kid. He bounced from family to family to family, ended up on the streets and in a lot of trouble, and somehow managed to turn that horrible childhood around. And while my childhood wasn't as bad as his, I too went through a couple of families, and ran away, and was adopted, and lived in halfway houses. So we have that similar past, and it just led to a lot of the similar experiences. I love going through the stuff and finding these diamonds, these gems.

PM: Wow.

MG: So that's what I've been up to lately, in my free time, is deciphering these bar napkins. He wrote with his left hand with a felt tip pen on a bar napkin when he was drinking. So it's really like reading hieroglyphics. Like, is that an "e," is that an "i," is that...? [laughs]

PM: Do you mean he was a right-handed person but he wrote with his wrong hand.

MG: No, he wrote always left-handed, but it's that different kind of slant that a left-handed person writes with.

PM: Right.

MG: And of course, he was slammin' down White Russians and writing on bar napkins with a pen that bleeds ink all over the place.

PM: [laughs]

MG: So it's a slow process, but I'm glad it's slow. I don't want this to go fast. I'm savoring it.

PM: What a unique opportunity. That's really beautiful.

MG: Isn't that cool? I'm very honored to be able to say that I'm doing that.

PM: Is there something about you that you think even your fans may not know or understand?

MG: Oh, man, it's all out there. It's in the songs. There's nothing left to tell.

[laughter]

MG: If I have any secrets, I don't even know.

PM: Well, Mary, we must get together sometime when you're back in town. We've talked about it before, but I really want to do it.

MG: Well, let's do it, man. I'm not doing anything until the record comes out in September. This is probably my last string of shows.

PM: Okay. Thanks so much for your time today. I really enjoyed talking with you.

MG: Oh, sure. I appreciate it. See you soon.

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