For the last few years Loudon Wainwright III has arranged his visits to Scotland without consulting me. Now I’m not a big one for turning up to most gigs – I’m quoted on wanting to see David Bowie (who I like very much) play in my local park if there was something good on the telly. I would, however, make an exception for Loudon as he is very good indeed. The trouble is each time he’s been anywhere near me I’ve been on air or doing a gig myself.The last time I saw Loudon was 15 or so years ago in Edinburgh and it was a great night. What I love about the Loudon show is that there’s no need to have done any homework before you go. Often – especially with artists of a certain vintage and heritage – you feel a need to skim a couple of albums to remind you why you bought/asked for/bid-a-fortune-for-on-ebay the tickets in the first place. Maybe we should all be breathalised before we submit credit cards. (Towards the end of Neil Young’s show last week I was wondering why I’d made such a heart stopping effort to get there at all when I’d forsaken some excellent home baking at the school parents night…but that’s another story)
On Friday I am going to present a pretty special two hours in the company of Loudon, his daughters Martha Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright-Roche and occasional musical interludes from his son Rufus Wainwright and Martha and Rufus’s late mother Kate McGarrigle. It’s not an overstatement to suggest – as I will on Friday – that, outside the Carter-Cashes, this is the most significant musical family in folk/roots music over the last forty years. At the start of it all and still right in the middle of things too is the formidable Loudon. I first met him when he hosted a TV show years ago called Loudon and Co. Deacon Blue played that show and I asked Loudon about a song he’d performed. He said he’d send me the album and, as good as his word, the album popped through the postbox a few days later. It’s called History and it’s still one of my favourites of his or anyone else’s output.
What makes Loudon such a special artist is his candid story-telling about himself, his friends and – most of all – the other members of his family. Sometimes they respond. We’ll hear two particular responses from Martha and Rufus. We’ll also hear them sing together – Loudon and Lucy sang a beautiful duet for us – and we’ll hear why music has been the glue that has kept them all together – even when they’re falling apart. As Loudon sort of says, ’We’re the same as every other family and that’s why people dig the songs.’ I think that’s dead right.
It all starts on Friday evening at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.
