Bob Harris Country - 13/05/2010

Bob is joined by award-winning, Louisiana born singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier, who wrote her first song at the age of 35 after emerging from a life of drug and alcohol addiction. Given up at birth by her mother and adopted by Catholic Italian parents in Louisiana, Mary Gauthier's latest album 'The Foundling' explores this experience and her subsequent search for meaning and identity. Mary's music has always been intensely personal, and hugely influenced by her life experience. She spent her early years battling personal demons which led to her leaving home at fifteen, living in halfway houses and descending into a world of drugs and alcohol. After moving to Boston and opening a Cajun restaurant an arrest for drink driving forced her to face her addictions and led to her getting clean and sober - a state which gave her the mental clarity to write songs, an ambition she had never been able to fulfil before. Since starting to write she's released six albums and in 2005 was named best new and emerging artist at the Americana Music awards in Nashville.