Cutrufello Charges Guitar With Power

A veteran of Austin’s music scene, singer-guitarist Mary Cutrufello plays honky-tonk shot through with rock ‘n’ roll swagger and a whole mess of attitude. Her songs closely adhere to the country music template: They’re preoccupied with loneliness, the lure of the road and broken relationships. But if her writing style owes a debt to Merle Haggard, her musical approach is pure Keith Richards. Clad in an all-black ensemble and wielding her Telecaster like a lethal weapon, Cutrufello’s performance at the Mint on Wednesday was a blast of adrenaline.

Truth be told, Cutrufello’s workmanlike songs aren’t really the point; they just provide a pretext for her to cut loose onstage. Nearly every song in her arsenal is a full-bore country-rock tempest, and on Wednesday she was caught in her own crosswinds, relentlessly twirling and flailing across the stage, her dreadlocks a blur.

But the real main attraction was Cutrufello’s guitar playing. A remarkably versatile stylist, she offered everything from the drawling, plangent twang of traditional honky-tonk to the kind of high-wire antics associated with Stevie Ray Vaughan. It was no surprise that her rhythm section worked both sides of the country-rock fence: The drummer was a basher, while the bassist played an acoustic stand-up.

Unfortunately, Cutrufello’s guitar frequently drowned out her grainy vocals, which made it nearly impossible to decipher what she was singing about half the time. It hardly mattered, though: This natural-born exhibitionist’s charisma more than compensated.