Meg Hutchinson is an award-winning songwriter who artfully documents the human condition. With a poet’s ease, she makes the personal universal, allowing people’s stories to come alive through her unique vocals and haunting melodies.

Since the release of her Red House Records debut COME UP FULL in 2008, she has won high praise for her songwriting and has been featured nationally on NPR Music, XM/Sirius Radio and several times on the syndicated show Mountain Stage. Publications like The Winnipeg Free Press have compared her songwriting with that of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Joni Mitchell.

Growing up in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, the woods and rivers were her childhood muses, as were songwriters like Greg Brown and Joni Mitchell, and poets like Mary Oliver and William Stafford. “I grew up in the country without a TV or internet,” Hutchinson says. “There were so many quiet hours in the day– so many spaces between events. That stillness and intimacy with nature have been formative in my life.”

When Hutchinson inherited her grandmother’s 1957 Martin guitar at age eleven, her love of words found expression, and there was no turning back. “Songwriting is not something I chose, I’ve just somehow always known that this is what I love to do. The songs have been medicine.”

After graduating from college with a degree in creative writing, Hutchinson quit her longtime job on an organic farm and moved to Boston. She quickly became an integral part of the vibrant Boston songwriting community. Like many great performers who have come out of the Boston scene, Hutchinson took to the subway, performing in Park Street, Downtown Crossing and Harvard Square T stations – honing her skills in the footsteps of Martin Sexton and Tracy Chapman.

Hutchinson  won the prestigious Kerrville New Folk Award in 2000 and was nominated for a Boston Music Award for her first studio album AGAINST THE GREY. She went on to win awards at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, the Telluride Troubadour Songwriter’s Showcase in Colorado and The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest in North Carolina, all in the course of a year. National publications like Performing Songwriter took notice calling Hutchinson “A master of introspective ballads filled with understated yearning and an exquisite sense of metaphor.”

After recording her live album ANY GIVEN DAY in 2001, and continuing to build a fan base throughout the Northeast, she went into the studio with esteemed producer Crit Harmon (Lori McKenna, Martin Sexton, Mary Gauthier) to record THE CROSSING.

Released in 2004, THE CROSSING caught the attention of renowned folk/roots label Red House Records. Label president Eric Peltoniemi knew there was something special in the young songwriter, “Meg won me over with the profound yet easy depth of her lyrics — rich words married to melodies I just can’t get out of my head.” Confident that her songs could stand alongside those of Red House heavyweights Greg Brown, Eliza Gilkyson and John Gorka, Peltoniemi signed Hutchinson to the label in 2007.

In 2008 Meg recorded her Red House debut COME UP FULL. An instant folk hit, the album was one of the most played on folk and college radio and landed her on many “best of the year” lists. Hutchinson toured heavily in the U.S as well as Ireland and the UK, winning new fans on both sides of the Atlantic. She was a favorite at South By Southwest (SXSW) and the International Folk Alliance Conference.

In the fall of 2009, Meg Hutchinson joined fellow songwriters Antje Duvekot, Anne Heaton and Natalia Zukerman to record a holiday EP WINTERBLOOM: TRADITIONS REARRANGED. A collection of eclectic holiday and wintertime tunes, the CD featured original and traditional songs from a variety of backgrounds – ranging from a German hymn to a Yiddish folksong to a midwinter Greg Brown ballad.

The four women performed concerts and radio interviews in 12 cities that December, and formed a deep musical bond and camaraderie which continues to the present day. They have toured Germany and the Netherlands, sung alongside Sarah McLachlan at Lilith Fair, performed for a week on the Cayamo cruise with the likes of John Prine and Lucinda Williams, and brought laughter and reverence to stages each holiday season.

In 2010 Hutchinson released THE LIVING SIDE. With this album the lens grew larger as Hutchinson tackled bigger issues in the world around her – suicide prevention on the Golden Gate Bridge (Gatekeeper) the American Dream gone awry ( Hard To Change) the crash of flight 1549 into the Hudson River (Hopeful Things) and a call to spiritual growth and recovery (Full of Light) – all while maintaining that intimate and relatable voice which makes her songs resonate so deeply.

Hutchinson has been busy in the three years since we last heard from her. She has relearned the piano and established a home studio, giving her greater flexibility to explore new territory.

In addition to mastering these skills Hutchinson has clearly spent much of the last three years finding a deep peace. The songs on her 2013 studio album BEYOND THAT are at once ecstatic and meditative. They are about coming home, about transforming desire, about how human love can open the heart for some greater purpose.

The Boston Globe writes, “Growth is at the heart of “Beyond That,” Hutchinson’s latest album on Red House Records that nudges her gently into more elastic territory….The tension between Hutchinson’s voice, an organic instrument that emulates both a twang and a croon, and the album’s electronic flourishes is especially arresting.”

Performer Magazine writes, “… What resonates most profoundly in listening to the record, is Hutchinson’s growth as an artist and as a person. She’s seeking uncharted territory on this new record, the subject matter of the songs taking her to places she hasn’t been before on previous albums. If you can even call them songs. So many of the tracks here feel like profound meditations, like nondenominational prayers.”

These are celebratory hymns from an artist who has made it out the other side of some difficult years and who is inviting us to go Beyond That with her now.

“Ploughing new sonic territory, Meg delivers a serene masterpiece… Beyond That is an ethereal symphony, replete with words that finely balance loss, hope and optimism” - Maverick Magazine

After years of touring heavily in support of BEYOND THAT Hutchinson embarked on a new chapter in her life. For over a decade she had felt a call to work with people approaching the end of their lives. She had accompanied her grandmother through hospice in 2005, and studied with Harvard Buddhist chaplain Lama Migmar since 2009. In 2015 she entered Divinity School at Boston University’s School of Theology. For the next four years she trained to become an interfaith hospice and palliative care chaplain, including a full time residency at Brigham and Women’s hospital.

In 2015 she also celebrated the release of a feature length documentary film PACK UP YOUR SORROWS (Ezzie Films/BlueStar Media). The film is told through the lens of Meg’s personal story and includes interviews with leading psychologists, neuroscientists, authors, historians and spiritual teachers. It explores many of the topics nearest and dearest to her heart: creativity, healing, mindfulness in education, mental health advocacy, wellness, and how these elements converge in making the world a better place.

In 2017 Red House Records closed their headquarters in St. Paul, MN after thirty-four years, and the iconic folk and roots label sold to Nashville-based Compass Records. After 10 years as a Red House artist Hutchinson made the decision to return to her DIY roots. She released a live double album HOW MANY MILES on her own label LRH Music. The live album charts her development as an artist over the course of sixteen years. These live recordings give us a window into her earliest days, from performing in the Berkshires all the way through the end of the BEYOND THAT tour.

For many years following the release of her live album, Meg’s focus turned toward chaplaincy. In 2020, just one month before the Covid-19 pandemic descended on the Northeast, Meg accepted a position at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as an inaugural member of a new palliative care oncology program.

After some intensely challenging pandemic years, and deep personal and professional growth, Hutchinson felt a longing to return to music. Music had always been a place of refuge, of healing, and of spiritual rest. In 2022 she took a sabbatical, went on a retreat in Ireland along the rugged coast of the Beara Peninsula, and came home to Boston to record a new studio album ALL THE WONDER ALL THE BEAUTY (LRH Music 2023).

For this album Hutchinson once again teamed up with esteemed producer Crit Harmon who she has worked with for 20 years. These are songs of transition, of letting go, of grief, and of discovery. Working with long-time collaborators guitarist Kevin Barry (Jackson Browne, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Ray Lamontagne) and bassist Richard Gates (Richard Thompson, The Weepies, Mary Gauthier) this album is her first with drummer Marco Giovino (Norah Jones, Robert Plant, Patty Griffin). These world class musicians play with remarkable emotional intelligence. They bring a sensitivity, a dynamic range, and a warmth that is at the heart of this hauntingly beautiful soundscape.

Hutchinson has never shied away from difficult conversations, and this album is no exception— yet we sense that the more directly she faces these topics - loss, change, mid-life, living with mental illness - the more her gratitude and sense of wonder emerge. If BEYOND THAT had a tone of triumph, the new album has a certain humility. It is the recognition that this work is lifelong and that healing is not a linear process.

There is an optimism that shines even more brightly the further in Hutchinson goes. This is an artist who never stops exploring the depths of the human experience, and the joy and freedom gained in this process is tangible. Hutchinson’s music has an intimacy that makes you feel that whatever it is you are going through, you are not alone.

These are life-giving songs of resilience. They honor the perilous journey through the most difficult transitions in life, and celebrate the wonder and the beauty at the heart of letting go. You can find the new album here.