Tonight will be Mary Gauthier’s debut at the me&thee. Mary’s new CD, The Foundling, is the product of two years work, and is quite simply the best collection of songs she’s ever recorded. The songs tell the story of a kid abandoned at birth who spent a year in an orphanage and was adopted, who ran way from the adopted home and ended up in show business, who searched for birth parents late in life and found one and was rejected, and who came through the other side of all of this still believing in love. This is Mary’s true story. Jason Myles Goss opens the show.

Alt-country singer/songwriter Mary Gauthier exploded onto the scene in 1999 following her self-released recording Drag Queens in Limousines. The album, which garnered her a Crossroads Silver Star and a four-star rating in Rolling Stone, had critics comparing her self-described “country noir” to the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, and John Prine, and, not surprisingly, Lucinda Williams. The success of that record led to main-stage shows at festivals around the country and multiple tours in Europe.

Embraced by critics and folkies fans alike, Gauthier’s warmly candid treatment of her fringe-dwelling subjects rings true, as it never verges on sentimental; her characters’ downtrodden lives are never coldly exploited. Instead, these are people she knows, who she met after dropping out of her Louisiana high school and stealing the family car at the age of 15, only to find herself in detox at 16 and jailed in Kansas City at 18. Her own wayward path led her to culinary school and, eventually, she opened a successful restaurant in Boston’s Back Bay — Dixie Kitchen — which she sold after her music career started to take off.

Filth & Fire, Gauthier’s third album, was produced by former Lucinda Williams sidekick, Gurf Morlix and released in 2002. Mercy Now and Between Daylight and Dark were well received but this past year’s The Foundling, which was produced by Mike Timmons of the Cowboy Junkies, has received the most incredible reviews of Gauthier’s career. It is included in many “Top Recordings of 2010.”

Mary Gauthier lives each day at a time, keeping the demons at bay, always looking for answers, always asking questions. “I’ve discovered we are all wanderers of sorts, we are all looking for meaning in lives that contain no guarantees. My birth mother and my adopted family loved me the very best they could and I am grateful for their sacrifices. I do have a good life. It has been a long road and it’s taken me longer than I am proud of, but these days I find myself at peace, grateful for each borrowed day.”

. . .

Jason Myles Goss was described as “a diamond in the rough . . . his talent and appeal are undeniable. If you aren’t convinced of this yet, just wait until you catch him live or one of his fans catches up with you.” Word has gotten out about Goss and it’s spreading fast. Put simply, Jason is a stand-out — in a sea of guitar-strumming twenty-somethings singing about late nights and the one that got away, Jason’s songs are more acutely poetic, darkly playful, and at times just plain quirky.

“When I moved from Cambridge to Brooklyn, I began writing a lot. I bought this notepad for scheduling temp jobs and I ended up scribbling all over it, whatever came into my head. It became fun piecing these characters and various threads together, without worrying how they related to me or where they would end up.” The result is his newest CD, A Plea for Dreamland, which is receiving glowing reviews from music critics and fans alike.

Jason Myles Goss photo by Doug Seymour

• With a voice like a grazed hawk, [Mary Gauthier] sings bluesy Southern Gothic tales. . . . Whatever you are doing I guarantee you’ll stop and listen to every word. 4 Stars MOJO Magazine
• . . . Gauthier’s songs startle with authority and detail. If she keeps this up, one day she may assume the mantle of Johnny Cash. . . . New York Daily News
• With songwriting as powerful as hers, there’s no need to go looking for qualifiers. . . . She’s a unique, intrinsically valuable musical voice. And there’s never a surplus of those. Los Angeles Times
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• Jason Myles Goss is the type of songwriter that finds the shadows and vapors that underlie the fine details of our existence, and puts them into lyrics that sound as natural as a dinner conversation between friends. Bob McKillop, MaineFolkMusic.com
• This one-man-show reminded everyone packed into the small venue what live acoustic performances are all about and why the up-and-coming deserve to be heard. Kristie Langone, Dissolver Magazine
• . . . Goss sings, with silky voice, gentle pining songs of love and loss. A direct expression of the music grown from 80s and 90s songwriter roots, this is the contemporary singer/songwriter reemerged. . . Club Passim