Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon’s long and illustrious career is highlighted by more than two dozen album releases, Movie and TV credits, and now his new autobiography, Liner Notes (2017 Penguin/Random House). In 2010 Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album for High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project. His 2012 recording, Older Than My Old Man Now, was named one of NPR’s Top 10 Albums of the Year. September 2018, Loudon releases his 27th career album to-date, Years In The Making, a retrospective double CD with more than 45 tracks – live performances, demos, outtakes, unreleased songs spanning 50 years.

Wainwright is perhaps best known for the novelty song “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)”, and for playing Captain Calvin Spalding, the “singing surgeon”, on the American television show, M*A*S*H.

His songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Cash, Earl Scruggs, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rufus Wainwright, and Mose Allison. He has collaborated with songwriter/producer Joe Henry, on the music for Judd Apatow’s hit movie Knocked Up. Loudon penned music for the British theatrical adaptation of the Carl Hiaasen novel Lucky You. He composed topical songs for NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered and ABC’s Nightline, and recorded several songs for the soundtrack of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

As an actor, Wainwright has appeared in films directed by Martin Scorsese, Hal Ashby, Christopher Guest, Tim Burton, Cameron Crowe, and Judd Apatow.

Surviving Twin
Loudon’s most recent project is his one-man play entitled “Surviving Twin.” A solo piece many years in the making, is what the singer-songwriter calls a “posthumous collaboration” with his writer father. Part concert, part dramatic reading, part family slide-show. It is a hybrid theatrical form consisting mainly of songs written by Loudon III, along with readings of magazine columns written by his late father, and photographs spanning four generations of the Wainwright clan. The show was developed with the help of director Joseph Haj, at UNC’s Playmakers Rep.

Reviews

The New York Times

"Mr. Wainwright has proved to be far and away the most candid diarist among the singer-songwriters who... brought confessional poetry into popular song... Mr. Wainwright wrings more human truth out of his contradiction than any other songwriter of his generation." Read Review

The New Yorker

"As good as he's ever been. Almost forty years into his recording career, he has not only retained his sharpness of wit but has also learned to cut with greater skill." Read Review

CD Review: Rolling Stone

"Folkie great shares wry humor and hard-won wisdom...[he] modernizes blues and Americana." Read Review

Love and death in the great outdoors with Loudon Wainwright III

"...a practiced showman who embellishes his singing with grimaces, wolfish grins and a waggling tongue." Read Review

DCMetroTheaterArts.com Review

"Surviving Twin will have you enjoying Wainwright’s honest and tender storytelling, engaging vocals, and impressive musicianship, while reflecting on your own treasured remembrances or unresolved conflicts with the ghosts that haunt you. I cannot recommend this show highly enough." Read Review