Folk troubadour Loudon Wainwright III will be at Landmark on Main Street Saturday, April 26, at 8 p.m.
Wainwright has had a long and illustrious career highlighted by 22 album releases, a 2010 Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album for High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, and two previous Grammy nominations for I’m Alright, in 1985, and More Love Songs, in 1986. His most recent recording, Older Than My Old Man Now, was named one of NPR’s Top 10 Albums of 2012.
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 television show M*A*S*H.
His songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Cash, Earl Scruggs, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Rufus Wainwright and Mose Allison, among others.
He has collaborated with songwriter/producer Joe Henry on the music for Judd Apatow’s hit movie Knocked Up, written music for the British theatrical adaptation of the Carl Hiaasen novel Lucky You, 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.
Wainwright most recent project is his one-man play, Surviving Twin. A solo piece many years in the making, Surviving Twin 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 Wainwright, along with readings of magazine columns written by his late father, Loudon Jr., and photographs that span four generations of the Wainwright clan.
Tickets are Premium $52 (Friends $47); Standard $47 (Friends $42) and can be ordered through the box office at 767-6444 or online at www.landmarkonmainstreet.org.
