Jesse Hultberg

In 1994 Jesse Hultberg released his self-titled solo album and it's become one of my favorite singer/songwriter albums of our culture. It took me several years to track him down for tonight's interview, as he moved to Paris about six years ago and pretty much dropped out of the music scene. When I did find him my additional research revealed other sides of his career I would have not expected.

In 1982 he was in a group that I've seen described as "post-punk," and with the eye-catching name of 3 Teens Kill 4. Their "No Motive" album is quite rare, and you can click on the cover above to see a large-scale blow-up of the back side, complete with lyrics and pics, and more.

MORE 3TK4

and, left, the album...and underneath it, his CD single of his wonderful version of "If I Can't Have You," plus two more tracks

And, what's Jesse look like today? He was gracious enough to send me these
vacation pics from last year, taken in Biarritz, on the south of France.

Mary Gauthier

Mary Gauthier has been charming the critics since her 1997 debut release, "Dixie Kitchen," and its follow-up, "Drag Queens In Limousines" (1999) won her a GLAMA award for Best Country Recording.

She took up music much later than most, at age 35, but the road to get there was a rough one and you can hear the pain and heartache she waded through in her songs.

A quick bio makes her sound the subject for a Lifetime Movie of the Week:  she grew up a wild child, raised by adoptive parents in Louisiana. She stole their car at age 15 and ran away from home. She spent her 18th birthday in jail, moved away again and stayed with some drag queen friends for about a year, dealing with life with the help of booze and pills. Through all that she studied philosophy at LSU, then attended the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts and founded Boston's first Cajun restaurant, still drinking all the way. She started the restaurant in 1990 and ran it for about ten years, and during that time she sobered up and started writing songs, and then performing at open mics, and in 1997 she released her first album, "Dixie Kitchen." Gradually she wanted to write more than she wanted to cook, so she got her business partners to buy her out, and used the money to make her second album, "Drag Queens in Limousines," released in 1999. "Filth & Fire" came along in 2002 and now (she just gets better and better) in early 2005 she's released "Mercy Now."

I didn't meet her at the 2000 GLAMAs, but did snap her photo when she picked up her award.