Full Review

Mary Gauthier – The Foundling

While Mary’s troubled background is well documented, her the road to success as one of the finest Americana singer/songwriters has taken 30 years since she spent her 18^th birthday in jail – these life experiences have made her the artist she is with honest and gritty songs, but here on ‘The Foundling’ the songs tell her own story.

The 12 track album is a song cycle that tell the story of a child abandoned at birth, who at various places in the story spends time in an orphanage, is adopted, runs away, ended up in show business, and who eventually tracks down one of their birth parents (and is rejected), but even through all this comes through the whole experience still positive.

Recorded in Canada by Mike Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies, this was an inspired choice as his acoustic and open approach to sound really suits the lyrical content and imagery painted by the lyrics. Other musicians involved with the disc include Tania Elizabeth (Duhks), Margo Timmins and Josh Finlayson.

These songs are obviously driven by the lyrical power and emotive subject matter, but it’s not all doom and gloom – the lyrics are always honest and at times quite bleak, but she’s never self pitying and the whole cycle is an experience full of genuine emotion and observations. Highlighting individual songs would somewhat spoil the overall impact of the album, this is one to listen to with your own ears and allow the words to paint their own pictures

The entire package is beautifully put together with distinct artwork and a booklet with full lyrics - this really adds to the whole experience and gives ‘The Foundling’ an extra feeling of a importance and weight.

It may not be the easiest album to listen to in terms of lyrical content knowing that the events directly relate to Gauthier’s life, but as an autobiographical piece of songwriting then this superb album has few peers. Not to be missed.