Lori & Mary will be on stage together as they share their stories & songs.

Lori McKenna was thrust into the limelight last year when superstar Faith Hill included three of McKenna's songs on her #1 album, Fireflies, including the poignant single, Stealing Kisses. In McKenna's songs, Hill heard an intimate understanding and honest expression of the realities of domestic life. A stay-at-home mother of five from the Boston area, Lori lives quietly (...as quietly as a house with five children can get!) with her husband, a plumber for the local gas company whom she has known since third grade.

As one Nashville reviewer put it, Lori's "fearless musical snapshots lay bare the realities of small-town life while clinging to the hope of better days." Faith Hill said "I don't remember ever being impacted by a songwriter the way I was with her ... Her writing is masterful, with a pureness that is completely unaffected. The songs are such a great combination of depth and realness ... there's just this indescribable collision of innocence and honesty in her writing." McKenna, who says she is overjoyed with Faith Hill's renditions, appeared with Hill on The Oprah Winfrey Show last year, chatting with the host (who teared up as McKenna told her story) and performing Fireflies with Hill.
More about Lori McKenna

Mary Gauthier's story, strange and scary, is as compelling as her music. Her path has wound through devastation and despair. She has lived off the streets, sunk to the bottom of life, turned 18 behind bars, beaten back demons, emerged from darkness and -- to completely confuse things -- won notice as a respected restaurateur ...all before writing her first song.

Eventually, she sold her share of the restaurant to finance Drag Queens in Limousines (1999). With that -- she smiles -- "all hell broke loose": Rolling Stone gave it a four-star rave; MOJO, Q, Gavin Report, and other publications joined in on the chorus. She also reaped an Independent Music Award and "country artist of the year" honors from GLAMA.

Her third release, Filth & Fire (2002), inspired critics in the Freeform American Roots poll to pick her as the top female artist of the year, and won benediction from No Depression as "the best singer/songwriter album of the year." Jon Pareles of the New York Times picked Filth & Fire as the top indie release of 2002. Rolling Stone acclaimed her "American Gothic tales ... delving into physical abuse, drug addiction, abject poverty, and homelessness." CMJ lauded her "piercing honesty" and "powerful singing."

Mary Gauthier's new album, Between Daylight and Dark, finds her searching for home, her compass pointing to the sky, filling Gauthier's new material with both hope & anguish, with faith as well as fear -- like a flower pushing through rubble, or a trace of sunrise in the troubled sky.

$25   |   Door $30