The Wainwright Sisters

Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche come by their musicality the old fashioned way – from their parents.  Although they didn’t grow up together, they were both born into the same musical family: Martha and Lucy share the same father, Loudon Wainwright, while Kate McGarrigle is Martha’s mother and Suzzy Roche is Lucy’s. Music nurtured them, lyrics shaped their worldview, and songwriting is in their blood. They both began their musical journey at a young age. For years, Wainwright and Roche followed in the footsteps of their parents, then becoming renowned musicians in their own rights – but their latest project finds the two working with their closest collaborators yet: each other.  

Last November they worked together on Songs in the Dark, an album of music from their childhood, from lullabies to country classics. Many of the tracks revisit the songs of their father and mothers’ with a few selections taken from outside the Wainwright family songbook. Recording those songs was a nostalgic exercise for Wainwright and Roche, reconnecting to the tunes of their childhoods and possibly re-imagining them for their own children.

At a Wainwright Sisters performance, festival-goers will get an intriguing look into the music that was sung and played and loved in the Wainwright households, along with the influences and sounds that shaped and informed one of music’s most talented families.