Who is Mary Gauthier

Mary Gauthier ( ; born March 1962 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American folk singer-songwriter. Given up at birth by a mother she never knew, Mary was adopted by an Italian Catholic couple in Thibodaux, Louisiana. At age 15, she ran away from home and stole her parents' car, and spent the next several years in drug rehabilitation, halfway houses, and living with friends; she spent her 18th birthday in jail. These experiences provided fodder for her songwriting later on (particularly her song "Drag Queens in Limousines"). Later on, she enrolled at Louisiana State University as a philosophy major. She opened a Cajun restaurant in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, Dixie Kitchen (also the eponymous title of her first album). She wrote her first song at age 35.

After the release of her first...