A marathon live session from Westchester County’s favourite, oldest and best satirist.  Could Loudon Live in London be remembered as the DEFINITIVE Loudon Wainwright III collection?

Release Date:  31^st January 2025

Label: The Last Music Co

Formats: CD / Digital

A SHOW THAT SHOULD’T BE MISSED…

He might be knocking on the door of his 9^th decade (he turned 78 last September) but Loudon Wainwright III still has a few steaming bowls of biting satire and astute observation to serve up before he walks offstage for the last time.  He returns to our shores at the end of January for a nine-date tour of England and Scotland. He’s alongside the magnificent Transatlantic Sessions (Aly Bain, Jerry Douglas et al with guests that include, this time, Julie Fowlis, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams and Niall McCabe).  THAT sounds like a show that shouldn’t be missed, under ANY circumstances…

…AND THE DEFINITIVE LIVE ALBUM?

And that’s not all.  Loudon is kicking off 2025 with the release of a new, extensive, live double album.  Recorded in March 2024 during a three-night residency at Neil’s Jazz and Blues Club in Kensington, Loudon Live in London is an album that visits pretty well every stage of Loudon’s extensive career. Comprehensive is the word. From the days of his earliest eponymous albums, through later works like I’m Alright (1985), Therapy (1989), Last Man On Earth (2001) and Older Than My Old Man Now (2003). Shifting on to his later offerings, 2014’s Haven’t Got The Blues (Yet) and his most recent studio album, 2022’s triumphant Lifetime Achievement.  In amongst the engaging setlists he delivered on the memorable evenings recorded here, there’s also a smattering of covers of songs from a few of Loudon’s favourite artists. Perhaps most interestingly, a couple of brand new songs are featured.

See what I mean when I suggest that there’s life in the old fella yet?  It’s no exaggeration that Loudon Live in London could very well turn out to be the definitive Loudon Wainwright III collection.

There’s 21 tracks in all, plus a healthy dose of Loudon’s signature inter-song patter. He’s up there, alone – just man and guitar – for the lot. That’s except for the remarkable and so very welcome interlude when he’s joined by son Rufus for a spot of vocal duetting. 

SONGS SUNG WITH CARE AND PASSION

He’s playing to a home crowd, of that there’s no doubt; and, if there was any doubt, it’s immediately dispelled by the warm applause that greets Loudon’s arrival on stage to kick off his show with a trio of songs that, surely, this audience will know by heart.  The hilarious Harry’s Wall (“There he goes – that’s what’s-his-name – we saw him on TV…”) is quickly followed by a pair of dives right back to Loudon’s earliest days. An audience request for Motel Blues (from 1971’s Album II) is followed by a version of fan-favourite Be Careful There’s A Baby In The House. Loudon sings with such care and passion that you’d be forgiven for believing that he’d only just written it.

Other trips along Memory Lane include the short, baroque All In A Family. There’s a captivating version of the hysterical I Remember Sex – Loudon’s recollections of the situations and locations in which he’s done the act (“Once in a Morris Minor – a convertible, I think…”) and Missing You. The latter his autobiographical ode to loneliness and regret. 

RUFUS IS A WHAT…?

Written “…in celebration – and envy – of breast-feeding,” Rufus Is A Titman is, perhaps, Loudon’s most notorious song. A fact that certainly justifies its inclusion here . I did sense a touch of unease amongst his, otherwise, dedicated audience as his graphic lyrics not only touched the bone but also gouged out a spoonful of marrow in the process.  It’s OK though, because Loudon’s immediately joined – to an ecstatic reception – by his more-famous-than-dad son, Rufus. He adds some beautiful vocals to a superlative version of Out Of This World.

Sticking with the older material for the moment, the inclusion of Grey In LA. It’s a personal favourite Loudon song. A story of heavy rainfall flooding his new house, soon after he’d moved to the city, is particularly poignant so soon after a natural disaster of another kind has wreaked such havoc around the same neighbourhoods.  When he sings “Bush fires can sure curb your mirth,” it’s as though Loudon was peering into a crystal ball.  From the 1998 Little Ship album Primrose Hill, deals with the tribulations of being out of money and luck in London. Another firm favourite. Here, it’s performed so well.  Surely one the best and most observational songs ever written about London and the life that takes place there.

OLD SONGS, NEW ANECDOTES…

Maybe my favourite of the older songs that Loudon performed at these shows is the wonderful White Winos. Another of Loudon’s deeply touching autobiographical songs.  From the Last Man On Earth album, it’s a song in which Loudon’s recollections of his mother’s liking for white wine (in copious quantities, but never more than five glasses) resonates so much with my own parental memories.

Moving onto the more recent material, the charming, sincere, I Knew Your Mother is a song almost forgotten about. It’s great to be reminded. Llines like “Don’t forget that I knew her when love was the means and you were the end” are as funny today as they were when they were first written.

A recent addition to Loudon’s live repertoire – and a stinging reminder of the stage that his life has now reached – is the pair of anecdotes included here. In Memorial Service, Loudon wonders whether his wives and ex-wives, his children and his ex-girlfriends will all attend his memorial. A once-in-a-lifetime event, as he puts it. If they do, how will they get along together? He wonders how they’ll express their grief and considers how his hoards of admirers will be accommodated in and around the service venue.  With Roman Numeral, he gives thought to the “Preppy and pretentious” suffix that his father persuaded him to add to his name as he was setting out in the music business.  Both anecdotes are received with much mirth.

WELL-CHOSEN COVERS…

Loudon Wainwright III has always included a few well-chosen cover versions in his live shows and they’re present and accounted for here.  Peter Blegvad’s Daughter has been in Loudon’s repertoire for the past couple of years and deservedly so.  The song featured in Judd Apatow’s 2007 movie, Knocked Up. Peter’s lyrics – about watching a young child playing in water – will strike a chord with anyone who has experienced that same situation.

Loudon’s interpretation of Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright is imaginative, intimate and distinctly Loudon. He also clearly enjoys performing Bacharach’s Please Stay.  He’s covered quite a few Tom Lehrer songs over the years and they always fit so well alongside his own songs.  I particularly recall his version of The Old Dope Pedler that he sang with Chaim Tannenbaum a few years ago. Here, he tackles Oedipus Rex, another Lehrer favourite.  Loudon plays his ukelele and sticks with Lehrer’s ragtime theme. The audience’s chuckles increase as they start to get the song’s incestual message and the “I’d rather marry a duckbill platypus” line is met with unrestrained hilarity.

…AND STUNNING NEW SONGS

Perhaps, it’s three of the newer songs that elevate Loudon Live in London to the status of a great album.  With the wonderful Posthumously Yours, Loudon reflects, once more, on the stage at which his life has reached.  He refers to that Roman numeral suffix once again as he acknowledges that he’ll soon be joining his grandfather (Loudon Wainwright I) and father (Loudon Wainright II) wherever they may be. However, he takes adverse pleasure in pointing out: “but I’ll live on if this song gets played.” 

With the equally reflective Tar Heel – the derogatory name given to natives of North Carolina, the state in which Loudon was born – Loudon looks back over his life, rather than forward toward the end of it.  He informs us that “I was born ass-backward,” acknowledges that “I’ve been around for quite some time, roamin’ all over God’s Earth.” He namechecks musicians including Earl Scrubbs, John Coltrane and Nina Simone as he embraces his Carolinian heritage.

ABSORBING

Lifetime Achievement, the title track of Loudon’s last studio set is the perfect song to round off this absorbing live album.  Loudon Live in London is an album that documents his life and achievements. With this song, he concludes that, despite the awards that have come his way, along with the critical recognition that is evident throughout this album, his greatest achievement has been to find, and retain, a life partner: “The biggest prize, the biggest surprise, is I managed to find you.  Who needs cash and prizes?  What I achieved is you.”  Amen to that.

And the audience went wild.

Listen to the Loudon Live in London version of Primrose Hill here:

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