MARY CUTRUFELLO ACOUSTIC

Mary Cutrufello's first guitar was a gut-string acoustic. At 9 years old, the Connecticut-raised, Yale-educated singer-writer-guitarist persuaded her mother to let her take lessons and learn to play it. All was fine until she auditioned for her junior high school jazz band. While she was good enough to make the band, the band director quietly took her aside and told her that, in order to play in the band, she needed an electric guitar.

“A what?”

“An electric guitar.”

Armed with this knowledge, she approached her mother, also an educator, who asked her guitar teacher what to do.

“He suggested a bunch of guitars, and actually found me a bright red Hagstrom 335-style electric,” Cutrufello recalls. “A Chuck Berry guitar. I got that and a Peavey Backstage amp, and that was the end of me and acoustic guitars.”

From there, Cutrufello's future was set. She became an electric guitarist, moving from the Hagstrom to a Fender Stratocaster (“I walked clear across town on the last day of 8th grade and put my allowance money down on the guitar that looked like Eric Clapton's”) and then her trademark Telecaster (“the only one in New Haven [Connecticut] my senior year at Yale.”)

“I always kept the gut-string, but I never played it. I had no interest in it. I was into guitar solos, and amps, and playing in bands.”

Her band mentality took her far. She moved to Texas after graduating from Yale in 1991 with a degree in American Studies, and spent the decade of the 90s honing her chops as one of Texas' most respected lead guitarists. In addition to turning heads with her own honky-tonk trio, her skills landed her a job playing guitar for Texas legend Jimmie Dale Gilmore in 1996. She also earned kudos as a writer from such luminaries as Billy Joe Shaver, Steve Earle (with whom she wrote “Love's to Blame” from her debut CD who to love + when to leave) and Willie Nelson, who invited her to play his annual Fourth of July picnic.

It all paid off in 1998, when Mercury Records released When the Night is Through. Critically acclaimed, that record led to appearances on Austin City Limits and The Tonight Show, and a summer tour with the Allman Brothers Band. While touring in support of that album, she rediscovered the acoustic guitar.

“We'd toured all fall [of 1998], and the band wanted to go home for the holidays. I still wanted to go, so my booking agent booked me at three clubs in the Northeast, solo-acoustic, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, for three weeks in a row. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I knew I wanted to keep playing. It was in those three weeks that I taught myself how to play acoustic guitar.”

Emboldened by these shows, Cutrufello recorded Songs from the 6, a solo-acoustic album, in 2001. “Technically, it was the followup to the Mercury record,” she says. “But the label had gone away, and while they were straight-up enough to cut me a sizable check to buy me out of my contract, I had no label, which in those days was a big deal.”

Songs from the 6 was recorded live to cassette in room 223 of the Motel 6 in Goodlettsville, Tennessee in early 2001. The record received strong reviews, and Cutrufello began to add acoustic shows to her schedule of gigs.

“Ever since those East Coast shows in '98, I'd been intrigued by the possibilities of the solo-acoustic presentation. I mean, it can be really intense, but it's completely not like the intensity you get standing in front of a band with a Telecaster on. The songs—and the characters in them—really get to speak for themselves. People can get into the words, and you can tell stories and make connections among characters who might not have known each other, if you will, if they were just hanging out at some loud bar watching a band.”

Cutrufello still straps on her Telecaster on a regular basis, but the acoustic shows have won a firm place in her heart. “Even with the acoustic, I still jam out pretty hard,” she says. “I still play solos and fills, but it's more than ever in the service of the songs and the folks in 'em. It's their show, really. I'm just the random person on the bus or at the bar who overheard their story, and now I'm trying to tell you a little bit about what I've seen and heard. Songwriting is about slices of life, people and situations, and solo-acoustic, you really feel that.”

In 2010, Cutrufello spent a day in a Minneapolis studio and emerged with Acoustic EP, a five-song look at the state of her acoustic art. In late 2011, she returned to the same studio to record its followup. The as-yet-unnamed project is slated for a February 2012 release, and, in Cutrufello's words, is "deep, moody, and very, very country."

Cutrufello has embarked on an extensive series of solo shows, including house concerts and more traditional acoustic venues. Whether you enjoy her playing, her unique voice, or her gritty everyman songs, you'll hear a lot to enjoy in a Mary Cutrufello solo performance.

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