'Story gets better as we go': Country-folk artist Mary Gauthier playing in Winter Haven

WINTER HAVEN – It’s a return trip, and one that she says will cover it all this time.

In 2022, Nashville-based, Grammy Award-nominated folk-country musician Mary Gauthier played Winter Haven’s famed Derry Down with a focus on her most recent release, 2022’s “Dark Enough to See the Stars.”

On Thursday, Gauthier – whose songs have been covered from a variety of musicians from country’s Tim McGraw to British pop star Boy George – will bring her entire career into the Derry Down spotlight.

Starting at 7 p.m., Gauthier said she’ll play a 90-minute “An Evening with Mary Gauthier: A Career Retrospective Show” that will include her country and Americana tunes running from her first album, 1997’s “Dixie Kitchen” to “Dark Enough to See the Stars.” That album featured songs written with longtime co-writers during the pandemic years and mourned the losses of musicians and peers such as John Prine, David Olney, Nanci Griffith and others. Her partner Jaimee Harris will join also perform.

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From Nashville, where she’s lived since 2001, Gauthier said the Derry Down show is part of her winter tour of Florida, which includes stops in Gainesville, St. Augustine, Sarasota, Fort Lauderdale and a cruise ship out of Miami. She said her retrospective tour shows are in a singer-songwriter, “troubadour” style and pretty thorough overviews of her music career since “Dixie Kitchen.”

“I’m going to start with the first batch of songs that I wrote that I liked and work my way all through the years and tell stories. It’s just sort of an overview of what I’ve done for the last 30 years. It’s fun because the story gets better as we go along,” she said.

Gauthier’s early work, which began when she was 35, reflected her newfound sobriety and recalled events from a troubled life growing up, which continued even after she became a renowned chef in Boston. Since first recording, Gauthier has released 12 albums, including 2018’s “Rifles & Rosary Beads,” which earned a Grammy nomination for “Best Folk Album” and an “Album of the Year” nomination from the Americana Music Association.

As far as her current tour goes, Gauthier – who has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, NPR Music and others – said she’ll play her hits, including “I Drink” and “Our Lady of the Shooting Stars” from 1999’s “Drag Queens in Limousines” and “Blood is Blood” off 2010’s “The Foundling.”

She said she’ll also delve into some of her lesser-known tunes, such as “Karla Faye,” a song that Gauthier said on her webpage “explores homicide, redemption, vengeance, soul sickness and bureaucratic murder — played out to their fullest in the life and death of Karla Faye Tucker, the Texas woman executed by lethal injection in 1998.”

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But much of Gauthier’s writing focuses on the caring, nurturing aspects of being human, and she said she’s looking forward to expressing that in Derry Down.

“We really love the room; it’s such a great little listening room for the area," she said. "The sound is awesome. It’s a sweet place. I can’t wait to get back there.”

And as for her show, Gauthier called the night “stories and songs,” and she’ll read excerpts from her 2021 book, “Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting.” She added her shows have little to no audience interaction.

“If interactions are happening, things are going wrong. I got a show, and I’m going to stick to the thing that moves it along in a way that’s both emotional with laughter and sometimes tears,” she said. “I want people to know they’re not alone. I connect in a way they know they’re not alone — my job is to bring them to a place of connection.”

If you go

WHAT: An Evening with Mary Gauthier: A Career Retrospective Show

WHEN: 7 p.m., Jan. 18; doors at 6 p.m.

WHERE: Gram Parsons Derry Down, 297 5^th St. NW, Winter Haven

COST: $25

INFO: www.gpderrydown.com/products/mary-gauthier-with-jaimee-harris;  863-295-9422

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Grammy-nominated country-folk artist Mary Gauthier plays Winter Haven