Mary Gauthier | Jaimee Harris

Accessible All ages

What out lesbian moves to Nashville at 40 to start a troubadour career? Who goes from playing open mics to playing the Newport Folk Festival in one years time?

It’s been 25 years since Mary Gauthier, now a revered songwriter, released her groundbreaking debut album Drag Queens in Limousines. Eighteen months after this record was released, the response was so incredible that she hung up her chef’s coat, moved to Nashville, and started to make her mark as an exciting new voice in the songwriting world.

“Drag Queens in Limousines” is an anthem for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider. It turns out, that’s all of us. For twenty-five years, Mary Gauthier has brought all kinds of folks from all walks of life together with her deeply personal, yet paradoxically universal work.

By writing about what matters most to her, having the courage to sing what’s often too hard for us to say, and delivering the work authentically, Mary Gauthier opened the gate and widened the path that many who came after her have traveled.

Join us in celebrating twenty-five years of the unique, courageous songs of Mary Gauthier.

Special Guest Jaimee Harris

Alternately tear-stained and defiant, Jaimee Harris' passionate Americana is inspired by artists including Emmylou Harris, Eliza Gilkyson, and Mary Gauthier. She made her full-length debut with the genre-blending Red Rescue in 2018. The follow-up, 2023's Boomerang Town, a song cycle about destructive behavioral patterns, committed to a more earnest Americana.

Growing up in a small town outside of Waco, Texas, Jaimee Harris' love of music was encouraged by her parents; she got her first guitar as a gift when she was five. Her father took her to the first Austin City Limits Music Festival, where she got to see the likes of Emmylou Harris and Patty Griffin perform. It was a "eureka" moment for young Harris that caused her to see music as a way out of small-town life. She eventually began writing songs and was later inspired to press the accelerator on her planned music career the morning after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. By that time, she was living in nearby Austin. Using songs dating back to 2013 and as recent as 2017, Harris recorded her debut album, September 2018's Red Rescue, with Craig Ross (Patty Griffin, Spoon). Other contributors included the Whitmore Sisters' Bonnie Whitmore (bass), Jimmy LaFave (vocals), and BettySoo (vocals). As accolades for her debut rolled in, Harris relocated to Nashville and embarked on a tour with prior workshop mentor and fellow queer country musician Mary Gauthier.