A great live capture of a Troubadour on top of his game.
Over the course of a 50 year plus career, with around 30 albums under his belt, Loudon Wainwright III has surely earned the right to be considered one of the greats of modern American folk music. When he first appeared on the scene back in 1970 his songs, humour and stage persona led to him recalling that, back then, “I was dubbed the new Bob Dylan, the Charles Chaplin of rock, the Woody Allen of folk and, my favourite, the male Melanie.” That last comparison is typical of Wainwright’s comedy, his absurdist take on show biz which has served his whole career. Throughout his work, Wainwright has tempered his song writing, which is in the main faultless, with humour, often sardonic, sometimes dark and at times painful to those he chose to sing about.
“Loudon Live In London”, his fifth live album, finds Wainwright, now in his late seventies, sounding pretty much as he did back in 1970. Sure enough he has a lot more songs to choose from these days but when he sings ‘Be Careful There’s A Baby In The House’, ‘Primrose Hill’ or the very moving ‘Tar Heel’, he’s barely aged a bit, he’s still that “new Dylan,” the years rolling back, one man, his guitar and great songs. The album was recorded over a three night residency at Nell’s Jazz and Blues Club and over 21 tracks he ranges throughout his back catalogue from his debut album to his latest release, 2022’s “Lifetime Achievement”, pays tribute to some of his inspirations and he enlivens the whole proceedings with his tales, as much a part of a Wainwright concert as the songs themselves.
The album opens with Wainwright’s incisive take down of celebrity on ‘Harry’s Wall’ with guffaws from the audience adding to the ambience. ‘Motel Blues’, an audience request, followed by’ Be Careful there’s A Baby In The House’, two songs dredged from the past, lead into one of the album’s highlights as he imagines his forthcoming (at some point) ‘Memorial Service’. Here, Wainwright abandons his guitar for a breathless spoken word routine, which is stand-up comedy at its best. Of course his family (much dissected in song over the years) looms large in this routine (he hopes his children will be able to take time out from their busy lives to attend the service) and he returns to them throughout the album. There’s the acute portrait contained in ‘All In A Family’ while ‘Rufus Is A Titman’, Wainwright’s jocular hello song to his firstborn, serves mainly as a precursor to the titular Rufus coming on stage to sing a sublime ‘Out Of This World’ aside his dad. Another song written for Rufus is ‘I Knew Your Mother’, a comic song of the first degree, while ‘Roman Numeral’ addresses the thorny issue of Wainwright III being tasked to distinguish himself from his father and grandfather who shared the same name. A song for his mother, ‘White Winos’, is another highlight, Wainwright managing to wring bathos from his memories.
Wainwright freewheels throughout the album, veering from humour to pathos, his newer songs as pertinent as his older ones, all delivered with his impish persona ever-present. He pays tribute to a couple of his influences as he tackles Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright’ (delivered quite eloquently) and, more surprisingly, Tom Lehrer’s ‘Oedipus Rex’, a song which harks back to ‘White Winos’. He closes the show with ‘Lifetime Achievement’, a riposte of sorts to the opening song as he eschews his awards, “Just a hill of beans” he sings as he values his relationships much more than any statues on his mantelpiece.
Far from being in his twilight, “Loudon Live In London” finds Loudon Wainwright III at the top of his game, the same old acerbic troubadour he has always been and long may he continue.
