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WEDNESDAY

When Mary Gauthier sings about being an outlaw, she’s speaking from experience. She stole the family car at age 15, checked into detox at 16, and sang “Amazing Grace” in jail on her 18th birthday. And she still won’t conform: k.d. lang notwithstanding, how many openly lesbian country singers can you name? Gauthier’s 1999 album, Drag Queens and Limousines, won her Country Artist of the Year from the Gay and Lesbian American Music Awards and spent eight months on the top of the folk charts. But it’s unlikely you’ll be seeing a video on Country Music Television anytime soon; it’s hard to imagine Faith Hill back to back with “Drag queens in limousines/Nuns in blue jeans…actors and barflies…drunks who philosophize”—or, for that matter, with the crew-cut Gauthier and her radical-sticker-plastered guitar. Gauthier opens for Guy Clark at 8 p.m. at the Barns of Wolf Trap, 1635 Trap Road, Vienna. $18. (703) 218-6500. (Pamela Murray Winters)