Mary Gauthier a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter from Nashville by way of New Orleans, will perform a free concert in Palo Alto on Sunday, October 17, Earthwise Productions announced today.

The 2 pm event will fill the Mitchell Park Bowl at 600 East Meadow Drive in Palo Alto. Jaimee Harris will open the show and perform as a duo with Gauthier. Advance tickets are available at EventBrite starting tommorow at 9 a.m.

Beyond her nine studio recordings between 1998 and 2019, Gauthier has published a book, “Saved By A Song” and will sign copies for her fans at the event, according to Mark Weiss, Earthwise’s founder.

Earthwise is also advancing a set of 12 free shows at either Lytton Plaza downtown or on California Avenue, between September 11 (Steve Poltz) and September 23 (Amendola Vs Blades), as part of Together Again Palo Alto, a local esteem-building initiative. After a 16 month hiatus, Earthwise produced three shows at Mitchell Park this summer featuring La Doña, Davd James, Vetiver, Motoko Honda and Philip Greenlief. Barbara Manning and the SF Seals are slated to perform indoors at the Mitch in November, Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise.

Earthwise’s complete fall schedule:

Saturday , September 11, 7 p.m.California Avenue (between Zombie Runner and Joanies): Steve Poltz (folk); free

Monday, September 13, noon, Lytton Plaza: Dayna Stephens  (jazz); free

Monday, September 13, 5 p.m. California Avenue (between Zombie Runner and Joanies): Inspector Gadje Sextet (jazz/world music) —  free;

Tuesday, September 14, Lytton Plaza, noon: Mads Tolling Quartet  (jazz); free

Tuesday, September 14, 5 p.m. Lytton Plaza: Mitch Woods & His Rocket 88’s featuring  Nancy Wright (blues & boogie); free

Wednesday, September 15, 12 noon, Lytton Plaza: Beth Custer, clarinet, Will Bernard, guitar (jazz); free

Wednesday, September 15, 4:30, Lytton Plaza: Ben Goldberg Scott Amendola Duo (perform music of Thelonious Monk) (jazz) free

Thursday, September 16, 7:30 pm, Lytton Plaza: Eden Edell (folk); free

Friday, September 17, noon, Lytton Plaza: Zach Moses Duo Featuring  Adam Nash (jazz); free

Saturday, September 18 Amendola vs Blades vs Skerik vs Parker (nooner Lytton –jazz ); free

Saturday, September 18, Jeremiah Lockwood 5 pm Lytton Plaza — (blues); free

Wednesday, September 22,  Amendola Vs Blades (5 pm Lytton Plaza, jazz); free

JUST ADDED Hawktail featuring Brittany Haas of Menlo Park, Lytton Plaza time TBA Saturday, October 2, 2021; free;

Sunday, October 17, 2 pm Mitchell Park Bowl, Mary Gauthier, Jaimee Harris, (folk); free

Saturday, November 20, Mitchell Park Community Center (indoors) Barbara Manning and the SF Seals; Corner Laughers; Clean Girl and the Dirty Dishes; (rock); $15 all ages at EventBrite.

“I had been telling people that I was going to wait until 2022 to resume my concert business but after attending the Ledisi show at the grand opening of Stern Grove in San Francisco, I decided to jump back into the business of community-building via live music”, Weiss said. “It’s still a little bit chaotic but I think we can be safe and sensible yet not close ourselves off to the arts or each other”. Weiss noted that despite the mask mandates in his home town, the County dashboards consistently show that the area, due to the conscientiousness and vigilence of our citizens, are still well below the “red zone” as defined by the national health bureaus.

Concert participants are strongly encouraged to follow all local health guidelines, Weiss said. 

Regarding Gauthier, Weiss said he was very impressed by a recent PBS segment about the musicians collaboration with health care workers, to create music that heals health-care workers. He lauded her 2017 cd “Rifles and Rosary Beads” that features songwriting contributions of veterans of foreign wars. 

My father was nothing like this but the song gets me anyhow: