from the south bend tribune, october 7, 2007
Raucous new CD testifies to healing
ANDREW S. HUGHES
Tribune Staff Writer
Mary Cutrufello pulls off a main road to park on a side street for the interview.
At the moment, Cutrufello's behind the wheel of a FedEx Ground delivery truck in Lake City, Minn., about 70 miles south of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where the guitarist and singer lived until recently.
The FedEx delivery route, however, isn't the proverbial "day job" for a struggling musician in Cutrufello's case: It's a way to promote her current tour, which makes a stop Friday at The Livery in Benton Harbor.
For about 18 months, Cutrufello drove this route for FedEx while she recovered from nodes on her vocal chords that put a brake on her musical career.
Healed and back with a raucous new album, "35," Cutrufello asked for her old route for a week in order to get the word out about the tour's gigs in Minnesota.
"This is just kind of a one-shot deal," she says by telephone on Tuesday. "Everybody knows me as the FedEx lady, not as a rock star."
A little background: Cutrufello grew up in Connecticut, earned a bachelor's degree in American studies at Yale University in 1991 and moved to Texas after graduation to launch her music career. Initially hailed in country circles in Texas, Cutrufello moved into rock as the '90s progressed and then moved to Minnesota in 2000. She put together a band in the Twin Cities and had started to record an album in 2003 when the nodes appeared on her vocal chords.
After extensive rehabilitation of her voice, Cutrufello returned to the studio in 2003 and began to record "35." In May, she moved to Austin, Texas, and is now on the road to promote "35."
After a fashion, Cutrufello says, "35" represents a rebirth for her as an artist.
" '35' is the record I was gonna make the spring the nodes happened, so I had a plan and everything got put on hold," she says. "When I came back, all of those things were there, but there was this pent-up emotion from not being able to work for two years and also this feeling of intense gratefulness every time I opened my mouth and music came out. With those two things, we went into the studio and really just cranked it out."
They did. Cutrufello and her supporting musicians produced a straight-ahead rock album that showcases her once-again strong but gruff vocals and her meaty guitar playing. The sound and songwriting recall that of such people as Dave Alvin, John Mellencamp and, especially, Bruce Springsteen, whose "Take 'Em As They Come" is covered on the album.
"That one jumped out at me (on the 'Tracks' box set) as something that would work with my band," she says of the cover. "Thematically, I think the desperation in that song fits in with the desperation a lot of my characters are grappling with. I think it fits in with the rest of the album, because it's about moments of decision and the moments after the decision when everything is different."
Cutrufello's originals on the album range in mood from the dark, Columbine-inspired "American Rain" to the free-spirited "Sonic Girls," from the kiss-off of "If You Don't Love Me No More" to the difficult affirmation of faith that closes the album, "Down to the River."
"I've always been about black-and-white divisions being nothing but gray, but I think now there are more shades of gray," she says of the songs on the album, which she started when she was 35. "People's lives are complicated, and the older you get, the more sides you see of what may look like a simple situation on the surface. The other thing that the added years bring you is how difficult it is to keep the faith, faith in humanity, in yourself."
Obviously, Cutrufello didn't lose faith in herself when the nodes sidelined her, as "35" attests, but her rehabilitation did force her to learn more about proper singing technique.
"As a result of that, I'm a more precise singer, but I hope I have the same passion I had when I was imprecise," she says. "That's the biggest thing for me to work on, being able to keep the spontaneity and passion high while keeping an eye on not hurting my voice, being more careful about what I do but not sounding as if I'm being careful."