PREVIEW
Loudon Wainwright III
Friday, Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m.
Arden Theatre
5 St. Anne Street
Tickets: $40. Call 780-459-1542 or at www.ticketmaster.ca
If ever there was a musician-singer-songwriter who put dysfunction in family, it is Loudon Wainwright III. But that has never hampered his prolific career.
In 2018, the Grammy Award-winning artist released two pivotal projects and he’ll be sharing them with fans at the Arden Theatre on Friday, Jan. 25.
In Surviving Twin, a Netflix special released in 2018, Wainwright uses his unapologetic narcissism to create a “posthumous collaboration” with his late father, Loudon Wainwright Jr., an acclaimed journalist for Life Magazine whose career spanned four decades.
In this one-man theatrical show, Wainwright combines and connects some of his most personal and best-loved songs to some of the 200 or so columns his father wrote.
Wainwright never characterized his relationship with his father as close. In fact, in the past he described fighting his father for his mother’s affection and confessed to hurting his father.
“We were competitive and combative. When I was a young man, I pushed back – which was appropriate. But we weren’t close and I always felt bad about that,” Wainwright stated in a moment of candour.
Despite their differences, both men enjoyed similarities.
“We both have the same name. We both went to the same boarding school and we both wear the same ring.”
In addition to Surviving Twin, Wainwright released Years in the Making, a double disc compilation of rare and unissued Loudon moments. The two-hour look-back starts off with his early folk efforts, his jump to rock and even some blues.
Wainwright has dug in his closet and dusted off obscure songs people have never heard, orphaned album cuts, old live recordings, radio appearances and home demos.
There are snapshots with his daughters, Kate McGarrigle and Suzy Roche, Bill Frisell, Steve Goodman, and even a few snippets of Liza Minnelli.
“We were kids together in second grade at Westwood California in Los Angeles. I wrote a song about Liza years ago, and after she won an Oscar for Cabaret, she was asked about it. In an interview they played my song and asked her about it.”
At 72, Wainwright is looking back and realized the old mementos reflected his life.
“They were interesting for me to hear and I thought others might find them interesting. There’s also an element of looking back and fashioning something.”
