Loudon Wainwright III: Older Than My Old Man Now on CD
Older Than My Old Man Now
Conventional CD, playable with all CD players and computer drives, but also with most SACD or multiplayers.
- Label:
- Proper
- Year of recording ca.:
- 2012
- Item number:
- 1989138
- UPC/EAN:
- 0805520030984
- Release date:
- 16.4.2012
"Alle meine Singer / Songwriter Zeitgenossen und Freunde haben neulich Memoiren veröffentlicht. Ich beschloss, ich würde versuchen, die Geschichte meines Lebens in einem 3 und 1 / 2 Minuten-Song zu erzählen", erklärt Wainwright III. Der Titel des Albums bezieht sich auf den Vater von Loudon, den 1988 verstorbenen Life Magazine-Journalisten Wainwright Jr. Nicht weniger als fünf Generationen von Wainwrights leisten ihre Beiträge zu diesem neuen Album mit Duetten mit Rufus, Martha, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Lexie Kelly Wainwright, Suzzy Roche, zusammen mit anderen geschätzten Gäste John Scofield, Ramblin' Jack Elliott und Dame Edna Everage. Loudon wurde mit dem Top 20-Hit "Dead Skunk" 1972 über Nacht berühmt, Wainwrights Songs wurden u. a. von Johnny Cash, Earl Scruggs, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rufus Wainwright und Mose Allison aufgenommen.
Product Information
As the new album’s title relates, Loudon is Older Than My Old Man Now – his old man, of course, being the late Loudon Wainwright, Jr., the esteemed Life Magazine columnist and senior editor.
“Singer-songwriter contemporaries of mine have recently taken to writing memoirs and autobiographies,” notes Wainwright. “I decided I would try to tell the story of my swinging life in a three and one-half minute song.”
He’s speaking specifically of the album’s lead track ‘The Here & the Now,’ which features jazz guitar great John Scofield and backing vocals from all four of Wainwright’s children – Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche and Lexie Kelly Wainwright – as well as two of the three moms, Suzzy Roche and Ritamarie Kelly. But the album as a whole reflects the stage he’s reached in his life, and as he so wryly puts it, the “death ‘n’ decay” that inevitably accompanies it.
One track which cuts directly to the issue, ‘The Days That We Die,’ remarkably brings together three generations of Wainwright males.
“My Dad wrote the recitation, and I’m singing with No. 1 son Rufus,” says Wainwright. “That’s my grandson Arcangelo Albetta – Martha’s kid – I’m walking with on the beach photo that’s part of the CD artwork. Not only that, but Loudon Wainwright I is referenced in the title track, so in fact there are five generations represented on the album!”
Wainwright’s father, who died in 1988, also wrote the recitation that introduces the album’s title track. “Please believe me when I say that collaborating with my long gone progenitor at this late date felt pretty damn big,” says his son, who also lifted the opening line of ‘Double Lifetime’ from one of the notebooks that his father used to carry around with him to write in.
Another key family member who is no longer living, Wainwright’s ex-wife Kate McGarrigle (the mother of Rufus and Martha), is represented by ‘Over The Hill’ – “the one song we wrote together, way back in 1975.” Martha Wainwright accompanies her father vocally on the track, as does multi-instrumentalist / vocalist Chaim Tannenbaum, his “musical sidekick and sounding board” for over 40 years. Suzzy Roche returns to sing on “10,” and even Wainwright’s lab / pit / chow mix Harry, who’s been featured (in the lyrics) in a number of his songs in the last few years, appears on “Ghost Blues” and the bonus download track for the album “No Tomorrow.”
But Older Than My Old Man Now, which was produced by Dick Connette (producer of Wainwright’s 2009 Grammy-winning High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project), boasts stellar participants other than family.
“One voice singing a lot about death ‘n’ decay can be a bit wearing so Dick and I brought in other singers to help with the heavy lifting,” says Wainwright. “The venerable Chris Smither testifies with me on ‘Somebody Else,’ for which High Wide & Handsome alum Rob Moose wrote the string arrangement. Barry Humphries, a. k.a. Dame Edna Everage, does a duet with me on ‘I Remember Sex.’ He and I were romantically linked in two episodes of Ally McBeal a few years back, and I’ve been besotted ever since. There is no greater living and performing legend than Barry Humphries, for my money. And he’s even older than I am!”
(proper-records. co. uk)
Rezensionen
,,Anrührende und sarkastische Songs über Familie und Alter." (Rolling Stone, Mai 2012)
,,LW III zieht die Bilanz seines Lebens in einem Songzyklus von kaum zu überbietender Lakonik." (Stereo, Juni 2012)
,,Older Than My Old Man Now heißen sowohl der Titel des Albums als auch der bewegende Song, in dem Loudon das Verhältnis zu seinem (im 63. Lebensjahr verstorbenen) Vater thematisiert, mit dem 1975 geschriebenen Stück “Over The Hill” erinnert er an Kate McGarrigle, seine Ex-Frau und Mutter von Rufus und Martha. Eine außergewöhnliche Geschichte dürfte auch das Duett mit Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna Everage) sein, dessen Text (“I Remember Sex”) beweist, dass bei Folkmusik nicht immer die ernsten Themen im Vordergrund stehen müssen." (Good Times, Juni / Juli 2012)
Disk 1 von 1 (CD)
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1 The here & the now
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2 In C
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3 Older than my old man now
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4 Double lifetime
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5 Date line
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6 All in a family
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7 My meds
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8 Interlude
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9 Over the hill
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10 Ghost blues
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11 I remember sex
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12 Somebody else
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13 The days that we die
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14 10
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15 Something's out to get me
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