June News
Join us on Sundays, 2PM CT!
We hope you are all staying healthy and safe! We love hearing from you, and appreciate you staying in touch and tuning in with us on our livestream shows these past few weeks.
I will be going LIVE from my Facebook Page and from my YouTube Channel during the month of June on Sundays, from 2-3:30PM CT. I will share stories and songs and will be taking your requests! I will also be reading short excerpts from my new manuscript.
Mary Gauthier Master Class: On Sale Now
I will am offering three Songwriting Master Classes on Zoom (Saturdays at noon CT) June 6th, June 13th, and June 20th. Class capacity is limited, so we can interact. Each class will focus on a different aspect of songwriting, but all of them will focus on finding and using your own songwriter's voice.
You can choose one, or you can sign up for all three at a 20% discount!
"$20 Bill"
05/28/2020
Written by Tom Prasada-Rao
My friend Tom Prasada-Rao has written an incredibly important song that captures the zeitgeist. Please give a listen, please follow him, and please tell him I sent you. He's an Earth angel and I have tremendous respect for his courage.
Photo credit: Mary Gauthier, Seattle, WA, March 2020
Our Last Show Before the Shutdown
Jaimee and I landed in Portland twelve weeks ago for a three-show run. When we landed, we learned that two of the three shows had canceled while we were in the air. Mandated venue shutdowns due to Covid-19.
In my thirty-year career, I’ve never canceled a show, and I decided that if the last venue, The Triple Door in Seattle did not cancel, I would not cancel. Seattle, as of March 13th, 2020, was ground zero for the Coronavirus in the US.
My impulse is always to show up for the show, no matter what. I’d keep my distance, be safe, wash the hell out of my hands. I checked online to see how many cases of COVID were reported in Seattle. There were a little over a hundred, mostly from a single nursing home. The population of the city: 3.5 million. Given the odds, I felt ok about my decision.
We decided to wait it out in Portland a couple of nights, 'til Sunday morning, drive to Seattle. The first night in Portland we went to Marukin, my absolute favorite Japanese Ramen restaurant for dinner, then went back to the room and turned on the TV.
The virus was spreading.
I went to bed, woke up late, had some coffee in the room, and went back to the Ramen place again for lunch.
I stopped at the front desk to ask for an extension on my stay, the desk clerk said he’d received over a hundred cancellations that morning, and the phone was ringing off the hook. He looked freaked out. He gave me another night at half price.
Went back to the room, washed my hands.
We ate out again for dinner, tacos. The restaurant was nearly empty. Walked past hundreds of homeless people, in tents, on the sidewalk on cardboard, living in boxes with tarps, under blankets, grapes of wrath type desperation all over the downtown streets of Portland. So much suffering, so many without a bed or a home.
Washed hands before dinner and after.
Watched the news back at the hotel, the virus was spreading.
Woke up the next morning, drove to Seattle, checked into the downtown Seattle Kimpton Monaco. The hotel restaurant was closed, the valet, bored. I asked the desk clerk how many guests were here tonight, and she said they had 6 people confirmed, which included us. We checked in, stunned, then went out for a walk. We walked past The Triple Door, the venue where we would be playing the next night, and the marquee had my name on it.
I said to Jaimee, “Wanna take a picture?”
Then we both saw the man vomiting underneath the sign.
A horrible omen.
Jaimee said, “Not a good time for the picture huh?”
LIVESTREAM SHOWS
Please make sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram for the most recent show announcements, as streams are being added daily!
Sunday, June 7th: Sundays w/ Mary Live Stream w/ Beth Nielsen Chapman, 2 PM, CDT, Mary Gauthier's FB Page
Sunday, June 14th: Sundays w/ Mary Live Stream, 2 PM, CDT, Mary Gauthier's FB Page
Friday, June 19th: Green Note Live Stream w/ Darden Smith and Will Kimbrough, 2 PM, CDT, Green Note's YouTube Channel
Sunday, June 21st: Sundays w/ Mary Live Stream, 2 PM, CDT, Mary Gauthier's FB Page