Born in 1974 in Canada; son of singer/songwriters Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle (of the McGarrigle Sisters). Addresses: Record company--DreamWorks Records,100 Universal Plaza, Bungalow 477, Universal City, CA 91608.

Rufus Wainwright makes pop music that sounds like it is of, by, and for another era--as if his competition were not Jewel, Britney Spears, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but rather Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and George and Ira Gershwin. With just a single album to his name, Wainwright has already wowed critics and earned a degree of popular success. Part of the public's response may be purely physical. The singer/songwriter is tall and built on a thin frame, and his looks are of the matinee-idol variety. Though openly gay, Wainwright seems to enjoy a following that is at least as much female as it is male, perhaps more so. But if Wainwright's comely visage, seen most widely in a December 1998 Gap commercial on which he crooned the standard "New Year's Eve," has helped attract fans, his songs--subtle, complex, and nearly all of them gender-neutral ditties about love--are what hold their attention.

Wainwright's father is Loudon Wainwright III, the wry, WASPish singer/songwriter whose one top 40 hit came in 1973 with the song "Dead Skunk." The elder Wainwright made his son the subject of 1975's "Rufus is a Tit Man," which described his irrational jealousy of his then-infant boy being breast-fed by his mother. Clearly, no topic was taboo in the Wainwright household, and in years since, Loudon has written a number of stingingly self-critical songs about his failings as a father and husband. He split with Rufus' mother, Canadian songstress Kate McGarrigle (who writes and sings with her sister Anna), when Rufus was four.

"Growing up, I hardly saw my father at all," Wainwright told Mim Udovitch in Rolling Stone magazine. "I saw him, like, twice a year for, like, a week each time. I hated him for years, and part of it was fueled by my mother, who had no qualms about telling me she hated him for years. But he really, really helped me, in his own way, and it was very important to have him around, even though it was much less. Now that I'm actually making it and doing quite well, I think it's a little harder for him, because he's still making records, and he's still touring and doing his thing. I just think it's hard, and there's still a side of me that wants to conquer him in a certain way."

Wainwright grew up living with his mother in Montreal, Canada. He began playing piano at age six. The atmosphere of the McGarrigle home was artsy and bohemian, with various musicians dropping by all the time. The parlor was often alive with singalongs of songs from the classic American songbook, as well as talent shows, performed by Rufus and his sister Martha, for their grandmother. Opera was often heard on the family stereo. Kate, meanwhile, closely watched over her children's music lessons, making sure that if they were going to play the piano, they were going to play properly.

By his early teens, Rufus had joined the family act, which was billed as the McGarrigle Sisters and Family. They toured the United States, Europe, and Canada. When he was 14, Kate and Anna were writing music for a kids film, Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller, and invited Rufus to contribute. He wrote his first song, "I'm a Runnin'," and wound up performing it in the film. It earned him nominations for a Juno Award, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy, and a Genie, the equivalent of an Oscar.

Beset with fears and frustrations about his sexuality, Wainwright immersed himself in the world of opera, identifying not so much with the heroic male leads, but rather the "damned ladies" who often met an inglorious and tragic fate. Believing that it might help his son escape a seemingly unhealthy interest in opera, Wainwright's father sent him to boarding school. Wainwright attended the prestigious Millbrook School in upstate New York, and in the school's pastoral setting, he regained his emotional equilibrium. Wainwright also continued his artistic pursuits and participated in musicals, including Cabaret. "First I was the emcee in that, then I was Jesus in Godspell, then I was God in another play," he told radio station KCRW's Liza Richardson. "It was always like typecasting, either the devil or God." Afterwards, he returned to Canada to study classical composition at McGill University in Montreal, but soon dropped out, discouraged by the emphasis of technical aspects of the music over artistic inspiration.

Wainwright then began pursuing pop songwriting seriously for the first time. His mother agreed to support him, so long as he was actually working on songs. During this period, he also began playing guitar, no longer threatened by the fact that that was also his father's instrument of choice. In writing pop songs, he found his own voice, though he was certainly influenced in one way or another by his parents. "I think with my mom, I'm affected a lot by her chords and stuff, her sort of really dark sensibility and romanticism which she likes to portray," he told Richardson. "Whereas my father, I think I picked up a little of his sort of wit, his stage persona."

Learning his craft as a performer at the Montreal nightspot Sarajevo, Wainwright eventually attempted to record some of his songs, working with producer Pierre Marchand, a family friend who had also worked with his mother and aunt. The resulting tape impressed Loudon, who passed it on to his friend Van Dyke Parks. Parks, a record producer, songwriter, and recording artist in his own right, is best known for his work with Brian Wilson. Parks in turn passed the tape along to Lenny Waronker, the former Warner Brothers Records chief who had nurtured the careers of individualistic singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Ry Cooder, and Parks himself. Kate and Anna McGarrile were once part of his artist roster as well. "When I was about to listen to his tape, I remember clearly I was thinking, 'Gee, if he has the mom's musicality and smarts, and the dad's smarts and voice, that'd be nice,'" Waronker told Udovitch. "Then I put it on and I said, 'Oh, my God, this is stunning.' "

Waronker had just set up shop at DreamWorks, the music arm of the company headed by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Waronker paired Rufus with producer Jon Brion, who has worked with artists such as Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple. They spent an inordinately long time making the record, most of 1996 and 1997, and recorded a large number of songs--56, spread out over 62 rolls of tape. Costs for the sessions ran an incredible $700,000.

Some would call that money well spent. With its lush melodies, songs of romantic yearning, and intricate string arrangements, provided by Parks, the songs on Wainwright's self-titled debut range from the gorgeous, neo-operatic "Foolish Love," to "Beauty Mark," a song Rufus had written about the mole above his mother's lip, to "Damned Ladies," about his beloved yet doomed ladies of opera. "Desdemona, do not go to sleep/Brown-eyed Tosca, don't believe the creep," the erudite lyric reads. There is also "Millbrook," a wink and a nod to his boarding school compatriots, and the eerie "Matinee Idol," inspired, supposedly by the death of actor River Phoenix. "April Fools" pretty well sums up his worldview as it pertains to romance: "You will believe in love/And all that it's supposed to be," begins the chorus with an unusually upbeat attitude. "But only until the fish start to smell/And you're struck down by a hammer." The album garnered its share of rave reviews. "If the songs on Rufus Wainwright remind you of old pop standards, it's because they're so damn classy," wrote Neva Choni in Rolling Stone. Soon after, Wainwright took the magazine's honor for Best New Artist.

Even as his own star began to rise, Wainwright joined the family act once again. The McGarrigle Hour, released in 1998 on Hannibal Records, is as close as the world will get to hearing one of those old parlor jam sessions where Rufus used to perform. In addition to Kate and Anna McGarrigle, the album features performances by their sister Jane, Anna's husband Dane Lanken and their offspring Lily and Sylvan, Loudon Wainwright, and both Rufus and Martha. One of the songs on the album is "What'll I Do," an Irving Berlin song that Rufus sang at his maternal grandmother's funeral which still has emotional resonance for the family.

For all that, he is still concentrating on making his own mark in the world, achieving a greater amount of respect and fame than his parents. "This has to happen," Rufus told Tucker. Given his talent and determination, it just might.

by Daniel Durchholz

Rufus Wainwright's Career

Signed with DreamWorks Records, 1996; contributed to The Myth of Fingerprints soundtrack, 1997; released debut album, Rufus Wainwright, 1998; joined with his family to record The McGarrigle Hour CD, 1998; contributed to the Big Daddy film soundtrack, 1999.

Famous Works

Recent Updates

September 23, 2003: Wainwright's album, Want One, was released. Source: Yahoo! Shopping, shopping.yahoo.com/p___1921994149?d=product&id=1921994149&, September 26, 2003.

November 16, 2004: Wainwright's album, Want Two, was released. Source: Globe and Mail, December 3, 2004.

Further Reading

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