Loudon Wainwright III

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Loudon Wainwright III
Background information
Birth name Loudon Snowden Wainwright III
Born (1946-09-05) September 5, 1946
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S.
Origin Bedford, New York, U.S.
Genres Folk, rock, blues, comedy
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, musician, actor, humorist
Instruments Vocals, guitar, piano, banjo, ukulele, percussion
Years active 1967–present
Labels Atlantic, Columbia, Legacy, Arista, Radar, Rounder, Silvertone, Charisma, Virgin, Hannibal, Red House, Sanctuary Records, 2nd Story Sound Records, Sovereign Artists, Concord, Proper Records
Associated acts Kate and Anna McGarrigle, White Cloud, George Gerdes, Richard Thompson, Chaim Tannenbaum, Spinal Tap, The Roches, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Joe Henry
Website www.lw3.com

Loudon Snowden Wainwright III (born September 5, 1946) is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, folk singer, humorist, and actor. He is the father of musicians Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche, brother of Sloan Wainwright, and the former husband of the late folk singer Kate McGarrigle. He resides in Canada.

To date, Wainwright has released 26 studio albums. Reflecting upon his career in 1999, Wainwright stated, "You could characterize the catalog as somewhat checkered, although I prefer to think of it as a tapestry."[1] Loudon Wainwright's songs are represented by Downtown Music Publishing.

Early life

Wainwright was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the son of Martha Taylor, a yoga teacher, and Loudon Wainwright, Jr., a columnist and editor for Life magazine.[2] His great-great-grandfather was politician and diplomat A. Loudon Snowden. His father was not a professional musician, but did play piano and wrote some songs, exposing his children to musicians such as Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg, whom Wainwright later cited as influences.[3] Wainwright grew up in Bedford, New York, in Westchester County. Among his sisters is Sloan Wainwright, also a singer. He graduated from St. Andrew's School in Delaware. He is a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Director-General of New Netherland[4] (present-day New York State).

Career

Wainwright's career began in the late 1960s. He had played the guitar while in school but later sold it for yoga lessons while living in San Francisco. Later, in Rhode Island, Wainwright's grandmother got him a job working in a boatyard. An old lobsterman named Edgar inspired him to borrow a friend's guitar and write his first song, "Edgar". Wainwright soon bought his own guitar and in about a year wrote nearly twenty songs. He went to Boston and New York City to play in folk clubs and was eventually "discovered" by Milton Kramer, who became his manager. He acquired a record deal with Atlantic Records, who released his first album in 1970.

Wainwright is perhaps best known for the 1972 novelty song "Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)" and for playing Captain Calvin Spalding (the "singing surgeon") on the American television show, M*A*S*H. His appearances spanned three episodes in its third season (1974–1975).[5]

Using a witty, self-mocking style, Wainwright has recorded over twenty albums on eleven different labels. Three of his albums have been nominated for Grammy Awards: I'm Alright (1985) and More Love Songs (1986).[6] In January 2010, he won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album for High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project.

Wainwright has also appeared in a number of films, including small parts in The Aviator, Big Fish, Elizabethtown, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Knocked Up, and the television series Undeclared and Parks and Recreation.[5] In the UK he recorded sessions for John Peel from 1971 onwards and appeared on a simultaneous broadcast on BBC TV and on Radio 1 in February 1978 (known as Sight and Sound in Concert).[7] However, it was in the late 1980s that he gained much wider popularity in Britain when he appeared as the resident singer with comedian Jasper Carrott in his UK show, Carrott Confidential, and has remained popular in the UK ever since.

He appeared as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in the first season's fifth episode, which was broadcast on November 15, 1975. He performed "Bicentennial" and "Unrequited to the Nth Degree" as a guest of host Robert Klein.

Wainwright has claimed that, like many of his contemporaries, he was inspired musically by seeing Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963. He was one of many young folksingers tagged as the "new Dylan" in the early 1970s, a fact that he later ruefully satirized in his song, "Talking New Bob Dylan", from History (1992).[6]

Wainwright was also a judge for the 4th annual Independent Music Awards.[8]

According to his own liner notes, Wainwright entered a period of deep depression following the death of his mother in 1997 and believed he could never write again. Retreating to his mother's cabin in the woods, he underwent therapy and gradually recovered, eventually recording the soul-baring Last Man on Earth in 2001. Since then his recording career has mostly returned to its previous frequency.

In September 2006, Wainwright and musician Joe Henry began composing the music to the Judd Apatow film Knocked Up, which was released on June 1, 2007. In addition to composing the soundtrack, Wainwright appeared in the film in a supporting role as the protagonists' obstetrician.[9] He has also composed music for the new theatre production of Carl Hiaasen's Lucky You, which premiered at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.[10]

Wainwright released a new studio album, Older Than My Old Man Now, in April 2012.

Personal life

Wainwright's first marriage was to singer/songwriter Kate McGarrigle. During their marriage, which ended in divorce, they had two children, Rufus and Martha. Rufus was the inspiration behind two of Wainwright's songs: "Rufus Is a Tit Man" (referring to Rufus during breastfeeding) and "A Father and a Son", a retrospective. Wainwright's songs inspired by Martha are "Pretty Little Martha" (composed about her as an infant), "Five Years Old" (about her fifth birthday), and the brutally honest "Hitting You" (about her teenage years).

Both Rufus and Martha have become singer/songwriters. Rufus composed "Dinner at Eight" about his conflicted relationship with his father.[11] Martha composed the song "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" about, according to her, her father.[12] They sang a duet together on the song "Father Daughter Dialogue" (on Wainwright's 1995 album Grown Man), and collaborated on the song "You Never Phone" (on Wainwright's 2003 album So Damn Happy).

Wainwright had a relationship with singer Suzzy Roche, during which they had one daughter, singer Lucy Wainwright Roche. The relationship ended, although Wainwright and Suzzy Roche remained on good terms and continued to occasionally appear onstage together.

Wainwright was married a second time in 2005, to actress Ritamarie Kelly; they have a daughter Alexandra (Lexie) Kelly Wainwright (born 1993).[13][14][15]

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums

Compilations

Singles

Promotional discs

Contributions

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ "Loudon Wainwright III". Lw3.com. June 20, 1999. Retrieved April 9, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Loudon Wainwright, III Biography (1946–)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
  3. ↑ Needles, Tim. "Legendary Songwriter Loudon Wainwright III". Short and Sweet NYC. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Loudon Wainwright III". Allmusic. Retrieved October 27, 2006.
  5. 1 2 imdb.com – Loudon Wainwright III Retrieved October 6, 2008
  6. 1 2 "Loudon Wainwright III Web Site: Bio". Retrieved August 25, 2011.
  7. ↑ BFI Film & TV Database Retrieved January 16, 2011
  8. ↑ Independent Music Awards – Past Judges.
  9. ↑ imdb.com – Knocked Up Retrieved October 6, 2008
  10. ↑ "Carl Hiaasen's Lucky You". Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Retrieved July 16, 2008.
  11. ↑ Anthony DeCurtis (August 31, 2003). "Rufus Wainwright Journeys to 'Gay Hell' and Back". The New York Times.
  12. ↑ Richard Jinman (April 15, 2005). "The Guardian profile: The Wainwrights". The Guardian.
  13. ↑ John Seabrook (September 21, 2009). "The Patriarch". The New Yorker.
  14. ↑ Steve Dollar (May 15, 2012). "Barking Up the Family Tree". The Wall Street Journal.
  15. ↑ Lexie Kelly. "Wainwright & I" (PDF). Ross School. Retrieved 25 March 2016.

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