THE MAN WHO MADE THE SPEAKEASY
LISTEN
by Ray Hollingworth
 Loudon
Wainwright III doing a press party at London's Speakeasy. It
seemed as unlikely as Dylan playing the back end of a horse in
a Stockport panto or Leonard Cohen clacking spoons down the Portabello
Road.
I mean, the first time I heard
Loudon Wainwright he seemed a genius close to death. Screwed
up, paranoaic songs, steel strings being scrubbed like he wanted
to destroy them. And the voice, well the voice, it flattered
Syd Barrett somehow. But it was incredible. The songs were urgent,
powerful, and striking. They were bitter and twisted. He spewed,
rather than sang.
Loudon Wainwright is the new
Dylan. You'll hear that a lot. If it were necessary to replace
people like Dylan, then sure, Wainwright might figure in the
auditions. But we don't have to do things like that. We can draw
similarities, but the only one I'd like to throw up is the immediate
buzz that comes from this American, the immediate lash. The rebel.
And yet Wainwright is funny,
and in his own words, a comic. This is getting awfully complicated.
Even at 12 midday, the Speakeasy
is dark and close, and Wainwright sat at this table wearing strong
American businessman's shoes, grey flannels, and a production
line shirt. The beard has returned to his face, a bunchy face
with comedy in the eyes.
He gets up, walks to the stage
and does a sound check, singing a few bits of broken songs, strumming
a well built sunburst cello-guitar. There are few people around,
but Loudon has a laugh.
About an hour later, John Peel
addresses the mike. Among the words are these: "There's
no doubt at all that he's faced with success, and no doubt at
all that he will overcome it. He's the most remarkable singer-songwriter
I've heard for many a year." Wainwright stands there, and
scrubs and wails, more a limerick than a song. Just everyone
is listening, there's not even the clink of a glass or the rasp
of an England's Glory.
"Go to San Francisco, we
know what happens there. Lyin' in the sun, lovin' everyone. But
you're bound to get the kinks in your hair."
He sings a whimsical way, but
distorting his mouth, as if there were deaf people in the audience,
and he was providing the most ingenious actions for lip readers
there had ever been. This is an entertainer, no sullen introvert.
The applause is most surprising for a reception, and when he
gets into 'Motel Blues', the time comes for the audience to drop
the barrier, and laugh at his humour, and he digs that.
It's simplicity, as though he
were making the words up as he went along, as though he were
seeing things right there and then that rhythmed, rhyming often
in the cutest way.
Wainwright stops. Great applause.
"You better get to take more pictures of me", he tells
photographers, "'cause there's deadlines to meet, and headlines
to meet."
"Now I'd like to do you
a song that's just three days old. It's come to my mind that
there's more roads in America than there in England, and for
some reason there's a lot of skunks about this time of year.
They walk over the road, and they get killed, and like every
three miles you can smell a skunk. Now this is a singalong song."
Mirth fills the room.
"Now come on, I don't know
if the Press singalong. Well, look here, just pretend I'm Pete
Seeger."
To the words of "Dead skunk
in the middle of the road" (three times) and then "stinking
to high heaven", the people sing, and then give him two
full minutes of applause. Somehow one gets the feeling you've
just seen something you'll remember for a long time, especially
when Loudon Wainwright's big and famous. Which he will be.
This was a wonderful reception,
ruled by a man with humour and confidence, and unmistakable talent,
who didn't wear jeans, and who was far from cool. In fact he's
a publicist's dream, polite, full of quips, extraordinary in
his own little way. I was told he'd be interviewed hanging from
the ceiling - if I wanted that.
Wainwright comes from an upper-middle
class famile in Westchester just outside New York. People in
that area are largely white anglo-saxon protestants - WASPS.
Loudon Wainwright II, his father, was a former editor of Life
magazine. Loudon Wainwright I, grandfather, is now dead. He worked
in insurance. Today's Loudon seemingly went without nothing.
His first successful stage was to be found in Greenwich Village,
then he travelled around. They are the only facts about him,
he's not an awfully factual person.
The Atlantic Records reception
lounge is full of sun, and Wainwright sprawls across the plushy
cushion. Now, an hour after the reception he's feeling "a
little adrenalised." He smokes Camels, and there's an instant
joke about one hump or two.
"I'm an extrovert in a sense.
Heck, what have I said. Man I can see the headlines now, Loudon
Wainwright says he's an extrovert. Oh no. Look, I'm really nothing
more than a comic. But it comes to being something else in other
people's minds now. I get the most fun out of life when I know
that everyone is having a good time. People singing along with
me, well that's great. I'm just an entertainer, my idol is Jerry
Lewis. THE Jerry Lewis, my idol, and the French intellectuals.
Jerry Lee Lewis? Well, he's okay too, he's a little eccentric."
"I've had to cope with people
saying I'm like Dylan for a long while now. Well, here I am in
England watching the river go by, and looking for Ramona. What
can I say about being like Dylan. There's nothing I can say."
"People want me to something
on that score, they say, oh you've been compared to Bob Dylan.
What do they want me to say, do they want me screw up and go?
Okay I'll tell you everything. Dylan has been my greatest influence!
My God I'll tell all. They want me to say that. But I can't."
Questions are treated briefly.
The evening before he'd seen Roman Polanski treat questions with
contempt on BBC-2. "I want to like Roman Polanski."
Quiet again.
On first hearing 'Album II' could
people be excused from thinking the songs had a terrifying content?
"I personally don't think
of my songs as terrifying. I'm no Baudelaire. I don't find anything
terrifying in them."
"I'm basically the same
person that I've always been, which is somebody who's about 170lbs,
and has freckles on his arms. I've been through some changes,
but that's because I've been performing more, and I'm affected
by things, so I must be changing in a way. Sometimes I feel the
same as I was a long time ago, and then I feel a bit different."
What did he feel about the comment
made by Peel? "That sort of thing makes me feel good, but
scares me. It's very flattering. But anybody who does this thing
never knows if it's going to be a continuing thing. I've written
about 50 songs to date, and I feel they are good. I feel what
I do is good, otherwise I wouldn't attempt to do it. People like
them at the moment, it's horrifying when they don't."
"When I grow out of songs,
when I decide what I'm doing isn't any good any longer, then
I won't do it anymore. I can't describe my songs - but I could
say they were indescribably delicious like a candy bar. But now
I'm trying to be like Polanski. I usually talk too much you see."
In a matter of seconds he's turned
into a lazy, languid person, doing his best to look comfortable,
but failing, and making ill friends with the couch.
"I come from Westchester.
I've lived there. I've been other places, lived other lifestyles.
There's nothing in my past that I'm trying to shake off."
"I'm not interested in rock
and roll. I'm no big rock and roll freak. Okay. I like to listen
to it occasionally, but I ain't got a tranny up to my ear all
day. There are other, more interesting types of music for me.
There's the old music, like the traditional music, it could be
traditional American music, it depends where I am at the time.
I do a lot of travelling, and I'm getting to enjoy it. I'm enjoying
playing live in different places very much."
Is there anything he dislikes
about the present rock culture? "Yeh, bellbottoms."
"But I've never really been
to lots of rock concerts. But I guess people are trying to be
the 'artiste', rather than the 'artist', or being artists as
opposed to entertainers. People who play music get an awful lot
of money, but my idea of an artist is someone playing some fine
place in Paris. But maybe that's being sentimental."
"I don't feel I'm unduly
sentimental. I write a few songs about the past, but I don't
sing about the Civil War."
"I don't work on writing
songs, they just materialise. It's a waiting game. Sometimes
I do try and sit down to create to fabricate a song, but it doesn't
work. I just have to wait till it comes. The best songs I've
written come out within a period of 30 minutes to an hour."
The time has come, with the introduction
of 4pm shadows in the room, to dry up. "I didn't have any
musical training - does it look like I had any? (laughing) My
songs are simple, well I'm a simple man, and I just love simple
things. I'm kind of lazy about it."
(From the British Pop Paper 'Melody
Maker' - September 1971) |
