| Loudon Wainwright III | |
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Wainwright III performing at the Kent State Folk Festival in Kent, Ohio, November 18, 2006 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Loudon Snowden Wainwright III |
| Born | September 5, 1946 Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Genres | Folk Rock Blues Comedy |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter, actor, humorist |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, piano, banjo, percussion, ukulele |
| 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.
To date, Wainwright has released 21 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]
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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] 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 direct descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Director-General of New Netherland[3] (present-day New York State).
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), including the episode "Rainbow Bridge".[4]
Using a witty, self-mocking style, Wainwright has recorded over twenty albums on eleven different labels. Two of his albums have been nominated for Grammy Awards: I'm Alright (1985) and More Love Songs (1986).[5] He won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album ("High Wide & Handsome") in January 2010.
Wainwright has also appeared in a number of films, including small parts in The Aviator, Big Fish, Elizabethtown, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and the television series, Undeclared and Parks and Recreation.[4] 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).[6] 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, the first season's 5th episode that was broadcast on November 15, 1975. He performed "Bicentennial" and "Unrequited to the Nth Degree" as a guest to 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).[5]
Wainwright was also a judge for the 4th annual Independent Music Awards.[7]
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.[8] He has also composed music for the new theatre production of Carl Hiassen's Lucky You, which premiered at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.[9]
Wainwright was married to the late 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 are also singer/songwriters. Rufus composed "Dinner at Eight" about a family dispute in the Wainwright household. Martha composed the song "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" about, according to her, her father.[10] She and Wainwright collaborated on the song "You Never Phone" (on Wainwright's 2003 album So Damn Happy), and they sang a duet together on the song "Father Daughter Dialogue" (on Wainwrights' 1995 album "Grown Man"). Wainwright has another daughter, Lucy Wainwright Roche (by the singer Suzzy Roche).
Wainwright remarried in 2005.
Promotional discs
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