Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright won’t hit age 50 until July 22, technically, but he started the festivities a few days early with “Fifty Isn’t the End,” a three-hour show at Long Island’s East End that was a tribute to Wainwright’s career, his family lineage and, inadvertently, some of the other children of famous musicians who happen to be among his pals. With a lineup that included Jimmy Fallon, comic Tig Notaro, Laurie Anderson and members of Wainwright’s family, including his sister Martha and his father Loudon III, the…

Folkocracy is a term often used to describe the Wainwright clan, rife with singer-songwriters. Significant members of the gang are present on this collaborative record’s final track, where Rufus Wainwright’s illustrious sisters, plus aunt Anna McGarrigle and close friend Chain Tannenbaum (playing the late Kate McGarrigle’s banjo), join him in a Scottish traditional, Wild Mountain Thyme, blending their voices with sweet mournfulness at the peak.Raised in roots music, Wainwright – a polymath who has also written opera –…

Martha Wainwright, 46, is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter, daughter of folk musicians Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle and sister of singer-composer Rufus Wainwright. She has had to work throughout her life to come confidently into her own with piercingly honest songs that tell it like it is – and how it was. Her disarming page-turner of a memoir, Stories I Might Regret Telling You, mixes steadiness with vulnerability.Throughout your life, your career has been talked about within your family context – is…

“Happy birthday!” someone yells at Loudon Wainwright III. The classic American singer-songwriter clocked up another year on Monday. “Thank you,” he replies. “I’m 37.”He’s actually 76, but it’s the first of many yarns during an evening marked by sharp insights, darkly funny misanthropy and mischievous banter, all Wainwright’s trademarks. “You’re all liquored up, aren’t ya?” he asks the boisterous Yorkshire crowd, before cheekily customising new song Town & Country: “I can’t believe I’m here … in Pocklington!”Wainwright…

Wildlife cameraman James Aldred, who has collaborated with David Attenborough, has been named the winner of the James Cropper Wainwright nature writing prize, while the award’s inaugural children’s writing prize has gone to two brothers writing about climate change.Aldred’s book Goshawk Summer is a diary of his time spent observing a family of goshawks in the New Forest in southern England. Originally commissioned at the start of 2020 to film the lives of the goshawks, Aldred was granted permission to continue when…

Whisper it: Loudon Wainwright III is happy. The great curmudgeon of popular music has spent 50-plus years picking at old scabs, showcasing his selfishness and documenting his tortured relationship with his famous family. But he has finally made a hopeful album. Sure, we still hear from the Wainwright of old; the tragicomic misanthrope who quotes Sartre’s “Hell is other people” in the song Family Vacation, about his need to take a holiday from his family. But Lifetime Achievement shimmers with grace, acceptance and, dare…

‘We really felt like underdogs – but we smashed it’The first time we played Glastonbury was when we were just starting out. We were first on the NME stage, at noon, except we didn’t have the right passes. We were trying to argue ourselves in, saying: “We’re supposed to be on stage right now!” We got in after 10 minutes, just in normal clothes, played four songs, and that was it – but we smashed it.Then the next time we played Glastonbury, in 1999, we were headlining. But even though we were a band that was firing on all…

Grace has a call from across the pond as she and the legendary singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright talk all things Comfort Eating. He tells her about going to a preppy boarding school, becoming addicted to crystal meth, and having his daughter via surrogacy with his husband. And, as always, he reveals the comfort foods that have seen him through it all How to listen to podcasts:…

Loudon Wainwright III will release his 31st studio album ‘Lifetime Achievement’ on 19th August 2022 via StorySound Records. His first collection of original songs since 2014’s “Haven’t Got The Blues Yet”, ‘Lifetime Achievement’ features 15 songs written by the 75-year-old. Says Wainwright, “I remember when I made my first record for Atlantic in 1969. I was always saying, ‘I want it to be a record – not only a recording, but a document that captures a moment.’ I was 21 and very serious, and I thought I’d be dead in…