Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and composer.[6] He has recorded eleven studio albums and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set Shakespeare's sonnets to music for a theatre piece by Robert Wilson.
Not to be confused with director Rupert Wainwright.
Rufus Wainwright
Wainwright's self-titled debut album was released through DreamWorks Records in May 1998. His second album, Poses, was released in June 2001. Wainwright's third and fourth studio albums, Want One (2003) and Want Two (2004), were repackaged as the double album Want in 2005. In 2007, Wainwright released his fifth studio album, Release the Stars, and his first live album, Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. His second live album, Milwaukee at Last!!!, was released in 2009, followed by the studio albums All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (2010) and Out of the Game (2012). The double album Prima Donna (2015) was a recording of his opera of the same name. His ninth studio album, Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets (2016), featured nine adaptions of Shakespeare's sonnets. Rufus' 10th studio album, Unfollow the Rules, was released on July 20, 2020. His 11th, Folkocracy, was released on June 2, 2023.
Wainwright is the son of musicians Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and the older brother of singer Martha Wainwright.
Life and career[edit]
Early years[edit]
Wainwright was born in Rhinebeck, New York, to folk singers Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III.[7][8][9] His parents divorced when he was three, and he lived with his mother in Montreal, Canada for most of his youth. His father is a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the 17th century Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, later New York. Wainwright has dual US and Canadian citizenship.[10] He attended high school at the Millbrook School in New York (which would later inspire his song "Millbrook"), and later briefly studied piano at McGill University in Montreal. He began playing the piano at age six, and started touring at age 13 with "The McGarrigle Sisters and Family", a folk group featuring Rufus, his sister Martha, his mother Kate, and aunt Anna. His song "I'm a-Runnin'", which he performed in the film Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller at the age of 14, earned him a nomination for a 1989 Genie Award for Best Original Song.[11] He was nominated for a 1990 Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year.[12]
Wainwright identified as gay while a teenager.[13] In 1999, he told Rolling Stone that his father recognized his homosexuality early on. "We'd drive around in the car, he'd play "Heart of Glass" and I'd sort of mouth the words, pretend to be Blondie. Just a sign of many other things to come as well."[14] Wainwright later said in another interview that his parents "could not even handle me being gay. We never talked about it really."[15]
Wainwright became interested in opera during his adolescent years, and the genre strongly influences his music. (For instance, the song "Barcelona" features lyrics from the libretto of Giuseppe Verdi's opera, Macbeth.) During this time, he became interested in Édith Piaf, Al Jolson, and Judy Garland. As a youth he trained at Interlochen Arts Camp, studying classical music.[16]
At age 14, Wainwright was sexually assaulted in London's Hyde Park after picking up a man at a bar.[15] In an interview years later, he described the event: "I said I wanted to go to the park and see where this big concert was going on. I thought it was going to be a romantic walk in the park, but he raped me and robbed me afterwards and tried to strangle me".[17] Wainwright states that he survived only by pretending to be an epileptic and faking a seizure.[18] He has been reported to have stated that he remained celibate for five or seven years after the incident, and eventually became promiscuous.[13][15][17][18]
Rise to fame, debut album[edit]
Throughout the summer of 1995, Wainwright played weekly shows at Cafe Sarajevo in Montreal.[19] Eventually, he cut a series of demo tapes produced by Pierre Marchand, who later produced Wainwright's second album Poses.[20] The resulting tapes impressed Wainwright's father Loudon, who passed them on to family friend and musician Van Dyke Parks. Parks then in turn sent the recordings to DreamWorks Records executive Lenny Waronker, who signed Wainwright to the label in 1996.[20]
The singer moved to New York City in 1996, performing regularly at Club Fez. He relocated to Los Angeles that year and began his first studio album, 1998's Rufus Wainwright. Waronker paired Wainwright with producer Jon Brion, and the two spent most of 1996 and 1997 making the record. Wainwright recorded 56 songs in total, on 62 rolls of tape. The sessions cost $700,000.
Wainwright's self-titled debut received critical acclaim; Rolling Stone recognized it as one of the best albums of the year, and named the singer Best New Artist of the year. Wainwright was nominated for four awards by the Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards, including Album of the Year, Pop Recording of the Year and Video of the Year, and won for Best New Artist.[21][22] Rufus Wainwright won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Music Album and a Juno Award for Best Alternative Album.[12][23] However, commercial success of the album was limited; the debut failed to chart in any country, though he ranked No.24 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.[24]
Wainwright toured with Sean Lennon in 1998[25] and began his first headline tour later that year. In December 1998, he appeared in a Gap commercial directed by Phil Harder, performing Frank Loesser's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?".[26] In March 1999, Wainwright began a headlining tour in Hoboken, New Jersey.[27]
Poses and struggle with addiction[edit]
Wainwright lived in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City for six months, during which he wrote most of his second album. On June 5, 2001, Wainwright's second album, Poses, was released to critical acclaim but limited sales. The album ranked No. 117 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Heatseekers chart.[24][28] Poses won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Music Album and a Juno Award for Best Alternative Album, and was nominated by the Juno Awards for Best Songwriter ("Poses" / "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" / "Grey Gardens").[12][29] From 2001 to 2004, he toured with Tori Amos, Sting, Ben Folds, and Guster, as well as headlining the 2001 and 2002 tour in support of the album.
Wainwright became addicted to crystal meth in the early 2000s and temporarily lost his vision. His addiction reached its peak in 2002, during what he described as "the most surreal week of my life". During that week, he played a cameo role in the UK comedy television program Absolutely Fabulous, spent several nights partying with George W. Bush's daughter Barbara,[30] enjoyed a "debauched evening" with his mother and Marianne Faithfull, sang with Anohni of Antony and the Johnsons for Zaldy's spring 2003 collection, and experienced recurring hallucinations of his father throughout. He decided after that he "was either going to rehab or I was going to live with my father. I knew I needed an asshole to yell at me, and I felt he fitted the bill." He subsequently spent a month in a rehab facility in Minnesota.[31]
