I’m thinking there will be some great musicians present, not just on stage, but in the audience tonight for Mary Gauthier, the Cajun songstress. My reasoning has everything to do with location. Athens, GA is right up there with Austin, Boulder, Portland, Detroit, Los Angeles, NYC, the Bay Area, New Orleans and Nashville in terms of producing recording artists.
This is how Flagpole describes the Athens, GA music sccene:
In the best and worst senses, the local music scene is a community. That means that most people involved are fiercely supportive of one another and will enthusiastically encourage talent to develop. Another great aspect of Athens music is its approachability; it’ll be a sad day when you won’t be able to chat with the singer of a local band 10 minutes after they finish their set. However, the tight-knit nature of local musicians can cause them to prickle when bands deemed “not cool enough” start to surpass others in popularity. But hey, the incestuous nature of Athens’ music can lead to some great payoffs, creatively speaking, so love it, learn it, deal with it.
Mary Gauthier is playing The Melting Point, a new Athens venue that just opened last fall.
“This is a project with a tremendous amount of passion behind it. We toured the country visiting many different music venues and we wanted to create a venue that was exciting to the artist as well as the fan attending that performance,” said Nick Walldorff, President of Foundry Entertainment.
The venue is on grounds of the Foundry Park Inn & Spa, Athens’ first and only premier boutique inn built on the location of one of Athens’ oldest historic sites and is centrally located in Downtown Athens at the Thomas and Dougherty cross streets. Luckily, we’re staying at the Inn, so the show is just across the parking lot, making for a very tight package.
[UPDATE] I didn’t see any of Athens’ musical luminaries in the crowd. In fact, the place was only about half full, which was something of a shocker. UGA was on break, so that may have been a contributing factor. At any rate, the small gathering did not diminish our joy at being there, nor Mary Gauthier’s performance in the least. Gauthier is such a wonderful writer, and she has the singing and playing down too. Sitting at our table, sipping Woodford Reserve and listening to her tales of woe is a musical journey I’d gladly repeat anytime.
After the show, we purchased her first two country-flavored CDs (unavailable elsewhere) and talked to her for a minute. She seems like a nice person.