Mary Bue is a songwriter, international retreat guide and yoga teacher based out of Minneapolis, often roaming this beautiful world. Named Best Songwriter of 2020 by City Pages, her music touches upon archetypal themes of the human condition: love, loss, survival, dreams, and the natural world. A longtime student of yoga and psychology, Mary weaves sacred subject matter into her songs, seeking of deeper levels of consciousness, and concern for the environment mixed into oft-crass, real-world hue. Mary is currently working on her 9th album The Wildness of Living and Dying to be released early 2025.
2020’s The World is Your Lover – produced by the Suburbs’ Steve Price – is a synthesis of her releases of the past 20+ years, merging pianos and guitars, spiritual longing, and real-world sorrow. Her previous albums achingly express life in melancholy piano-poems, yet in 2015 Mary risked a genre switch to aggressive electric guitars, concise lyricism, and a nod to 90’s grunge.
Prolific, lyrical, and gritty, Mary’s performances are warm and laced with quirky humor and stories of her adventures (and misadventures). A survivor and advocate, Mary is often invited to perform and speak about her healing process surrounding #MeToo of which she shares in her song “Petty Misdemeanor” (The Majesty of Beasts, 2017).
Not one to bow to popular music trends, Mary has stayed true to her own sound, evolving and about to emerge, butterfly-like, with support from her band collaboration The Monarchy (a nod to to the Monarch butterflies species) feat. Steve Price, Jeremy Ylvisaker, Richard Medek, Shannon Frid-Rubin, Julia Floberg.
In January 2020, Mary traveled to Rishikesh, India at the base of the Himalaya (where the Beatles & Donovan studied with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) to further her yogic studies (certified instructor since 2009). She attended Nada Yoga School to study Nada Yoga – the Yoga of Sound. Sanskrit mantras, lessons in harmonium, voice, and sitar, yoga asana, pranayama, meditation, and purification techniques were practiced to invite a pure vessel for deeper experiencing & creation of sound.
An accomplished recording artist and touring musician, Mary’s studio albums manage to capture her electrifying stage presence. Mary’s last four albums were 100% fan-funded via Kickstarter. She has been awarded multiple Artist Residencies including The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico ~ Taos, NM, “Escape to Create” Artist in Residence at The Seaside Institute in Seaside, FL, and Big Cypress Nature Preserve Artist in Residence in Ochopee, FL. Over many years, 40+ states, hundreds of thousands of miles and countless venues from tiny coffee shops to large outdoor festivals, Mary has shared the stage with many talented musicians, including Shawn Colvin, Low, The Suburbs, Charlie Parr, Erin McKeown, Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde), Emm Gryner, Kathleen Edwards, Marissa Nadler, Rose Polenzani, Jess Klein, Sarah Borges, Mason Jennings, HALEY, Jack Johnson, Vetiver, Cory Chisel, Nicole Atkins, Jeremy Messersmith, Anaïs Mitchell, Audra Kubat, Vandaveer, Chris Bathgate, Chris Trapper and more.