Loudon Wainwright III’s finest album: “Part of his lonely London period”
Music history is full of family affairs, from the sprawling Carter Family to the Staple Singers or Marty and Kim Wilde through to Billy Ray, Miley and Noah Cyrus or Oasis, The Kinks, Sly and the Family Stone, The Beach Boys or Haim, showing that there are families all over the musical map.
One such household of musicians who span the generations is the Wainwrights, who boast among them the songwriting and performing talents of Sloan Wainwright, Loudon Wainwright III, and his children Rufus, Martha and Lucy Wainwright-Roche.
It’s perhaps no wonder that each of the singing family shares a similar musical affinity, and each performs in a number of folk, roots and Americana styles and modes. Loudon Wainwright was even briefly touted as being one of the many ‘new Bob Dylans‘ in the early 1970s (alongside singers like John Prine, Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle), following the release of his eponymous debut album on Atlantic Records.
Though he never quite hit the heady heights of either Dylan himself or the other new Dylans, he has become something of a cult favourite and has released 26 albums over the course of his long career.
His singing son Rufus became a household name in his own right as a contemporary of Jeff Buckley, and especially so following the inclusion and subsequent popularity of his piano ballad cover of Leonard Cohen’s modern standard ‘Hallelujah’ in the 2001 Shrek Soundtrack album.
Each of Loudon, Sloan, Rufus, Martha and Lucy has performed and recorded together in various combinations over the years, while Rufus has written multiple songs in tribute to his father in his career.
He paid particular tribute to one of his father’s albums in a 2023 interview, singling out his 1985 record I’m Alright as one of his all-time favourites, saying that, “Around the same time as I got into opera, my dad put out this record. It has ‘One Man Guy’ on it, and a bunch of other great songs, but it’s very sparse. It’s mostly him and the guitar; it was part of his lonely London period. He was touring and travelling a lot, and I didn’t see him very much, so this record helped me understand who he was.”
He outlined how, to him, this album was a way of his father sending him a message, adding, “My father has always communicated with his loved ones through song, for better or for worse. And even though occasionally it can be a little traumatic, at least he’s reaching out, you know? It’s about trying to figure out the state of things and get to a better place.”
It wasn’t only his dad that Rufus singled out for praise, highlighting his musical mother, Kate McGarrigle’s debut release, 1976’s Kate & Anna McGarrigle, as a personal favourite, saying, “It really is considered one of the classic records of that era, the ’70s. There’s certain schools of thought which put that record up there with Abbey Road and Exile On Main St: it has a similar iconic vibe…. And of course, my mother’s voice with her sister Anna singing, it’s just so beautiful. It’s a very auspicious item to have in the family pantheon.”
