Folksinger Loudon Wainwright III has had a colorful and eventful life, professionally and personally. His more than half-century musical career has embraced dozens of studio albums, countless concert tours and one unlikely hit single, “Dead Skunk (In the Middle of the Road).” He has appeared off-Broadway and in films and popular TV series and is the son of a luminous journalist, the late Life magazine editor and columnist Loudon Wainwright Jr. He’s also the father of Rufus Wainwright and several other musicians, the ex-husband of the late singer/songwriter Kate McGarrigle and the ex-boyfriend of singer Suzzy Roche.
To learn more about these achievements and relationships, you don’t need to read the memoir that Wainwright published in 2017; you just need to listen to his music. To a greater extent than most songwriters, Wainwright has mined his own life for his lyrics, writing variously funny and heartbreaking, often first-person songs about his parents, his kids, his romantic entanglements and more.
Related: If you think Wainwright’s “Dead Skunk” was a surprise hit, check out some of the others we found
Moreover, his lines sometimes sound like ones you might hear in a therapy session. In fact, he released an album titled Therapy and a song of the same name back in 1989. He also once wrote a number called “Meet the Wainwrights” in which he namechecked family members and sang, “Loudon Wainwright, hey, he’s the patriarch/Yeah he’s the skunk man who can get a little dark/He is important and would like to make it clear/That were it not for Loudon none of you folks would be here.”
Loudon Wainwright III in 2024 (YouTube screen grab)
Equally personal lyrics pervade his fourth concert album, Loudon Live in London, which Wainwright recorded in March 2024 at a Kensington venue called Nell’s Jazz and Blues. The 21-track, 76-minute album, released in January 2025, includes songs from records as old as 1971’s Album II and as new as 2022’s Lifetime Achievement, his latest studio recording. The program also embraces four covers and a bit of new original material. It’s a solo acoustic set, with Wainwright accompanying himself on guitar, ukulele and harmonica.
The program features numbers about such subjects as achieving a modicum of fame (“Harry’s Wall”), the sexual trysts of a traveling musician (“Motel Blues”), parenting (“Be Careful, There’s a Baby in the House”), his mother (“White Winos”) and his bedroom adventures (“I Remember Sex”). The now 78-year-old singer also offers several meditations on mortality, among them “Out of This World,” with Rufus sharing vocals; “Posthumously Yours”; “Lifetime Achievement”; and a spoken bit called “Memorial Service” about his “up-and-coming, unfortunately inevitable” funeral.
The set’s covers include “Daughter,” by musician Peter Blegvad, and “Oedipus Rex,” by the humorous songwriter Tom Lehrer, whom Wainwright has cited as an influence. In addition, he offers an interpretation of Burt Bacharach and Bob Hilliard’s “Please Stay” that is amiable but no match for the Cryin’ Shames’ classic 1966 hit version. Finally, Wainwright—one of the many “new Dylans” to emerge in the late ’60s and early ’70s—sings Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” downplaying the original’s pretty melody and focusing on the lyric’s biting message.
Watch Wainwright perform Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” at a New York City show in 2021
Fans will be interested in all these covers, but the meat of the show is in the self-penned material, which underscores Wainwright’s distinctive wordplay, wry humor and penchant for introspective, often confessional lyrics. [It’s available to order in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.]
Watch Wainwright perform a full hourlong set elsewhere in 2024
A top editor at leading consumer and trade magazines for more than 40 years, Jeff has interviewed dozens of musical luminaries, including Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Wolfman Jack, Tommy James, Tom Waits, the Righteous Brothers, and the members of Steely Dan.
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