Word: wainwright
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Recent albums by three other folk-blues singers, Chris Smither, George Gerdes, and Loudon Wainwright, also bring to public attention exceptional individual talents which have, until now, enjoyed only limited audiences. Chris Smither has often performed in Boston, and, for several reasons, is the most likely of the three to meet wide acceptance...
GEORGE GERDES, a schoolmate and friend of Loudon Wainwright's, has also tried to learn a lot from Bob Dylan, inviting a comparison which is perhaps unfair. He has the same narrow vocal range, which he stretches around the edges. He uses harmonica in the same upbeat, folksy way although he plays both it and guitar much better than Dylan. On the whole, however, Gerdes is less successful, at least on his album Obituary--he is simply not as intense a folk or blues performer...
...most original of the three albums is Loudon Wainwright's Album II. His experiments in almost shrieking emotional honesty do not always succeed completely, but the openness, eloquence, and powerful directness of his desperate loneliness make James Taylor's moanings seem sadly trivial. Several times, Wainwright's attempts to reduce emotions to the briefest, most forceful, and most blatant lyrical statements sound dangerously close to the slogans on insipid posters in the Coop. When his attempts bear fruit, they are absolutely searing...
THERE IS so much that Wainwright seems personally struggling against--the familiar hypocrisy of society and what it does to individuals ("Be Careful, There's a Baby in the House"), his religion ("Nice Jewish Girls"), his ambitions ("Saw Your Name in the Paper"), the emptiness of renewed past acquaintances ("Old Friend"), and, of course, ultimately himself (a trilogy on suicide). His concerts are not novel, but the controlled rage with which he sings his songs is. His bitterness about human inconsequence shows up in "Suicide Song...
...compositional skill. Wainwright is an infectiously good guitarist and he uses extremely little back-up music. This reinforces the album's overwhelming sense of aloneness and, because Wainwright is so good, he carries the show successfully...