Loudon Wainwright III
To those of us who discovered Loudon Wainwright III in the mid-1980s, going back and listening to his early albums was slightly jarring. Oh, sure, there was the same combination of sardonic, self-deprecating humor and wistful, elegiac observation, the same melodic expansiveness and even the same ability to push his vocal delivery outside the bounds of conventional expression.
But there were differences, and they were important. The young Wainwright’s voice was higher-pitched, considerably less controlled, and not coincidentally less emotionally direct. In terms of arrangement, he was accompanied by only his lightly strummed acoustic guitar, or by a bare-bones band. Those first three records, with the roman numeral titles, had songs of obvious quality, but they weren’t as pleasurable to hear.
(Samples from Loudon Wainwright III’s 1973 record, Album III)
Now 61, Wainwright has only improved his vocal talents and record-making acumen. On Recovery, working with musicians as talented as guitarist Greg Leisz and producer Joe Henry, Wainwright revisits a baker’s dozen of his old friends, polishes them up into enormously powerful music, and as a bonus, reveals new insights into words he was perhaps too young to have fully understood at the time he wrote them.
Whether exploring the pains of alcoholism (but not forgetting its pleasures) in “The Drinking Song”, or celebrating the self-knowledge of infants in “Be Careful There’s A Baby In The House” (written after the birth of his son Rufus), these songs are drop-dead funny and sometimes devastating, often in the same phrase. With exquisite musical support, Wainwright puts as much soul into the vocals as he once did into the thoughts behind the words.
(Samples from Loudon Wainwright III’s new record, Recovery)