Rufus Wainwright is 41 years old today. Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer. He has recorded seven albums of original music and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written a classical opera and set Shakespeare sonnets to music for a theater piece by Robert Wilson. Wainwright was born in Rhinebeck, New York, to folk singers Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III. His parents divorced when he was three, and he lived with his mother in Montreal for most of his youth. Wainwright has dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship. He attended high school at the Millbrook School in New York (which would later inspire his song Millbrook), and later briefly studied piano at McGill in Montreal. He began playing the piano at age six, and started touring at 13 with The McGarrigle Sisters and Family, a folk group featuring Rufus, his sister Martha, his mother Kate and aunt Anna. His song Im a-Runnin, which he performed in the film Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller at the age of 14, earned him a nomination for a 1989 Genie Award for Best Original Song. He was nominated for a 1990 Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year. Wainwright became interested in opera during his adolescent years, and the genre strongly influences his music. (For instance, the song Barcelona features lyrics from the libretto of Giuseppe Verdis opera, Macbeth.) During this time, he became interested in Édith Piaf, Al Jolson and Judy Garland. Through weekly shows at Cafe Sarajevo, Wainwright was on the Montreal club circuit and eventually cut a series of demo tapes produced by Pierre Marchand, who later produced Wainwrights album Poses. The resulting tapes impressed his father Loudon, who passed them on to his friend Van Dyke Parks. Parks sent the recordings to Lenny Waronker, the DreamWorks executive who eventually signed Wainwright to his label. Waronker stated the following of Wainwright: When I was about to listen to his tape, I remember clearly I was thinking, Gee, if he has the moms musicality and smarts, and the dads smarts and voice, thatd be nice. Then I put it on and I said, Oh, my God, this is stunning. The singer moved to New York City in 1996, performing regularly at Club Fez. He relocated to Los Angeles that year and began his first studio album, 1998s Rufus Wainwright. Waronker paired Wainwright with producer Jon Brion, and the two spent most of 1996 and 1997 making the record. Wainwright recorded 56 songs in total, on 62 rolls of tape. The sessions cost $700,000. Here, Wainwright performs Leonard Cohen’s “Halleujah.”
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 04:15:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015