The Last Music Podcast
The Last Music Podcast
The Last Music Podcast: Loudon Wainwright III ~ Loudon Live In London
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In this episode, Malcolm Mills sits down with Loudon Wainwright III in the runup to his new live album, "LOUDON LIVE IN LONDON," concurrent with his Transatlantic Sessions tour dates in the UK beginning 31st January.
This is our digital cave painting about how the album came about, in which Loudon, "the real third man," talks about the songs culled for this reccording from his live show at Nell's in Kensington in March of 2024.
FIND THE ALBUM HERE: https://zurl.co/JdQT4
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My career is taking off. I'm a celebrity.
SPEAKER_00That is the sound of Loudum Wayne. You're welcome to the stage in London in 2024. This is Malcolm Mills with another podcast from The Last Music Company. Sometimes the problem with these things is using the correct points. You never know when it'll be heard, and it may be out here forever. So because you may be listening to this in the future, which is of course now, it's almost pointless telling you that Loudon Wayward, the third to avoid looking for your musical, has an album being released. London, England, The World, Universe got recorded for posterity back in the year 2024. Some of those performances were deemed good enough by the artist for him to suggest that they should be made commercially available on the popular formats of the day, where they can be or could have been obtained globally in exchange for money. The album is thoughtfully entitled Louden Living Hunter. Inevitably, Loudoun's concert menu consists largely of a staple diet of one-like classics for these films to feast on. For these shows and to the obvious delight of the audience, Loudoun should hold on to some exquisite choices of his own favourites by the writers. We thought it'd be a good idea for him to have the opportunity to talk about the songs on this album, and as I'm in London and he is in the US, it is my great pleasure to hand you over to the real third man to do just that. Loudoun, welcome to our you are connected via the digital pipeline. Kindly proceed.
SPEAKER_01Well thanks, Malcolm. I'm gonna talk about um Loudoun Live in London. It's uh a record, would you believe, a live record that um I've done um we recorded it at Nell's lovely intimate venue in Kensington? Uh we did it in uh in March of 2024. We did uh we recorded for three nights and then kind of stitched it all together, hopefully uh some kind of comprehensive, enjoyable fashion. When I say we, I mean me, of course. And uh Malcolm uh paid for it. My my good friend and uh uh colleague, Mr. Paul Charles at Asgard uh in London um uh worked it out with the venue, a wonderful place, and uh so that's enough uh ass kissing. Um it's pretty much voice and guitar. Uh I play a little harmonica and uh some ukulele, ukulele, but it's me doing what I normally do, which is play in clubs for people uh with my guitar. Play, play around, play my songs. This collection of material um on Loud and Live in London is uh older songs. Uh and by old I mean songs that are um well, let's see, there's a couple of them that were on my album two, my second album. I think this is a version of Motel Blues and Be Careful There's a Baby in the House. And then uh I kind of moved through the catalog, uh, which I'll do um in a more specific way. But um another uh aspect of the project is that uh there are some brand new songs, songs which I I think it's likely you haven't heard yet. You being the general listening public, uh there is some cover material, songs that I didn't write that you could say I wish I'd written. Great songs by great songwriters. So the album I'm in London, right? Imagine yourself in London. Maybe you were there that night, and I come out and play uh start start the show with a song of mine, which was probably in the written in the mid-80s. It was a song that was uh originally uh written for the uh when I was on Jasper Carrot's confidential on BBC 2 writing pithy, uh hopefully amusing topical songs. I wrote a song called Harry's Wall, which was about uh getting my uh 8x10 uh glossy uh tacked up on um my local uh dry cleaner in West End Lane in West Hampstead all those years ago. So we start off with Harry's Wall, then I mentioned um this older material, um very old, ancient motel blues, be careful as a baby in the house. There's also some some uh for want of a better term, spoken material. Uh and I by that I don't necessarily mean in-between song pattern. There are two pieces that uh were written for my book. Don't know if you've read my book. Liner Notes came out in uh 2017. But uh two two of the selections from that that um that book are are in the show. Uh I think I have a thing called Memorial Service and a thing called uh Roman numeral, both of which touch on my f one of my favorite topics. I'm sure you know about death and decay. Um there's a there's a nice uh little chunk of family material, that is to say, songs written about the family, um, specifically uh my family, members of my family, kids. Uh here's a real exciting thing to tell you about. Rufus Wainwright, my my son, uh happened to be in London uh last March. He was um there for the opening of his his fabulous musical in the West End entitled Opening Night. And uh anyway, so uh uh me and my girlfriend Susan went over there to see that, and then as I mentioned, Paul Charles arranged these three nights at Nell's, but Rufus came by on night number one and sang with me, to the delight uh of uh the audience and and me. Uh we sang a song of mine called Out of This World, and that is on Loudoun live in London. A highlight, I would say. Uh it's followed by a song called I Knew Your Mother, which is about uh uh Ruvis's uh mom, uh Kate McGarragle. Um the first cover that I do on the on the uh in the show is Peter Blegvad's uh terrific song Daughter, which um a lot of people have heard, probably because it was in a pretty big successful major motion picture called Knocked Up. Uh and uh it's it was the song that went over the closing credits in that film, it was a Judd Apatow movie, and anyway, uh boy Peter Blake Vad lives in London, he's local, he's somewhere ensconced in Shepherd's Bush, but he is an American and he but he's l been living with his lovely wife Chloe in um in London for decades and daughter is about his daughter Kay like that, who also happened to be at Nell's on one of those nights. So that was exciting. Here's uh I mentioned the spoken piece Roman numeral, that's on the thing on the CD, on the rec recording, and then a brand new song called Posthumously Yours. I'm sticking my toe back in the old Death and Decay uh Cess Pool. Um hey you know when I when I first started doing this, uh singing and playing and writing songs, uh I was um tagged uh uh as uh by some unimaginative, let's say, uh music journalist, as the new Bob Dylan. Um I guess it was because I played the guitar and my songs were good. That's what I that's how I see it anyway. But anyway, me and John Prine and Steve Forbert, even Bruce Springsteen got this uh new Bob Dylan tag, and um we've all survived. In fact, Bruce has done very well. Anyway, uh so one of the songs I cover is a Bob Dylan song. It's really the only Bob Dylan song that I know. It's a great song, I'm sure you know it too. Don't think twice, it's alright. I don't know which record that appeared of Bob's, uh, but boy, it's on my record, voice and guitar, and um I'm happy to uh to include it. There's a wonderfully uh risque, salacious song on the on the record called I Remember Sex. So look forward to that. Um location, location, location. I got Gray in LA about my time in Los Angeles or some of my time in Los Angeles, and then we get local again. Local, by local I mean London. Uh there's a uh a version of my song Primrose Hill, which was originally appeared, I guess, on a record called Little Ship, uh, about um uh this guy that I uh saw uh camped out living in the rough on Primrose Hill. Uh and there was a guitar and a sleeping bag and a dog on a clothesline, and uh I wrote a song about him. Or I suppose I inhabited him. The song is in the first person, but it's about this guy that I saw uh some years ago when I was living nearby in St. John's Wood. So uh some more London stuff. Uh here's another cover on the record. Boy. Remember uh Ple Stay, don't go. Please it was a big hit, I think, for the drifters or the coasters in the late 50s, early 60s. It was written by Burt Backrack. And I have a version of Please Stay on the record. I kind of zoom back into the family uh jungle with uh with uh my song White Whinos, a voice and guitar version of White Winos on the Loud and Live in London. And um then that's followed by um uh a song by uh the incredible Tom Larer. Um uh and I know in England uh anyway, uh the uh uh uh Tom is held in high regard as he should be for those records that he made in the late 50s, also for that uh uh show of his songs called Tom Foolery, which which ran uh free for a long time in London. Um uh Daniel Radcliffe famously recently, or fairly recently recorded Tom's song The Elements. The song that um I record is um Oedipus Rex, and it's featuring me in my fabulous ukulele um stylings. Um we're in the home stretch now, got a song, a new song called Oh, I gotta tell you, uh just last week me and Susan went up to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had a meeting or a cup of coffee with Tom Lara, who is 97, gosh, I think he's 97. If he's not, he's 96. And uh we had a delightful hour at his place there in Cambridge, his his house. And uh I I told him that I'd rec recorded his song, and he looked quizzical and uh but interested, and uh he was wonderfully uh charming and amusing. Uh we asked him kind of gently what what how how it felt to be uh uh uh 97 or six, and he came back with uh well the good thing about getting that old is there's less peer pressure. Ho! What a great answer to that question. We we laughed our asses off at that moment, anyway. Uh so that's my uh Tom Lara uh digression. So I think I was talking about Tar Heel, which is uh uh another uh new song, uh which you probably, I suspect you haven't heard, unless maybe you were there at Nell's that night back in March uh of 2024. Um it's a song about uh uh the place where I was born, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and my some general feelings about the American South and uh and my parents uh are featured as they should be. The last song on the record is a song called Lifetime Achievement, which appeared uh originally on my last studio album, which interestingly enough was also called Lifetime Achievement. Anyway, uh that's it, folks. Me and the guitar and uh my son Rufus and uh some ukulele and a smidgen of um of harmonica. Uh and uh I think it's 20 or 21 songs, and uh it's coming out soon, and um I I've enjoyed talking about it again. Thanks to my Malcolm Mills at Last Music and um Paul Charles and the other people that worked on the record were Stuart Lerman, uh produced and engineered the record, and my friend Dick Connette uh uh was one of the producers. So anyway, uh great talking at you, to you, and uh I'll speak to you soon. Take care. Bye folks.
SPEAKER_00Thanks Loudon, that was great, much appreciated. This fine album is available from Friday the thirty-first of January 2025. Or it was.