When Mary McBride and her band tours, their venues are "hospitals, homeless shelters and rehabilitation centers," reports John Jurgensen in the Wall Street Journal (6/14/10). Mary calls this tour "The Home Tour," and sometimes expresses the idea by quoting Maya Angelou: "I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself." Mary and her band will lose money on this tour, but that's not the point. "I have a very generous band who has bought into this idea," she says, "and the notion that payoff comes in different ways."

Mary's idea is simply to show "how communities can be nurtured, whether by sharing shelter, stories or -- for an hour or two -- some live music." She got the idea while "visiting homebound elderly people in Washington on behalf a foundation called We Are Family. Originally, she thought she would map a tour "where she could tack on money-making club dates," but the number of free dates far outnumbered the paid ones. She does get some free lodging courtesy of Starwood Hotels and discount Ryder truck rentals, which is nice.

Mary actually is no stranger to unconventional tours, having previously embarked on "The Five Borough Tour," in which her tour bus was taxicabs. Nor is she a total stranger to success, having contributed a tune called "No One's Gonna Love You Like Me," to the "Brokeback Mountain" soundtrack. Her music is said to fall somewhere "between country, folk and the blues, singing with a blurred voice that situates her somewhere between Lucinda Williams and Melissa Etheridge." Mary's latest record, "The Way Home," will be released June 22nd.