Loudon Wainwright III – 40 Odd Years – (Shout! Factory)

Folks who came to the Main Point on any kind of a regular basis between 1970 to 1979 are well acquainted with the works of Loudon Wainwright III. Wainwright performed at the coffeehouse on over twenty different occasions during those year – often to a packed house – and in doing so, became part of the fabric that made up the Main Point.

Over the years, he’s become known for delivering songs which capture the nuances of daily life in a way which is at once stark, contemplative, humorous, and provocative. His recently released ‘greatest hits’ box set entitled 40 Odd Years represents a solid cross-section of his work, and is one of the finest collections released by any artist in recent years. The collection features songs from throughout Wainwright s career, including works of brilliance such as “The Man Who Couldn’t Cry” from 1973′s Attempted Mustache, which Johnny Cash would record with producer Rick Rubin decades later – to the genuinely weird “Dead Skunk,” which became a #16 pop hit and thus a true novelty in the Wainwright canon – to highlights from his most recent projects, including cuts from the Grammy-winning album High, Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project. Also included in this box set is a 3-hour-plus DVD that includes an extremely rare documentary made for Dutch television entitled One Man Guy; numerous TV appearances (for the BBC, Saturday Night Live, Austin City Limits and others); as well as previously unreleased concert performances.

Loudon Wainwright III is a difficult artist to classify. The best of his music is both simple and sophisticated, bringing together strains from folk, country, blues, the American popular songbook and rock. But if you subscribe to the belief that there are only two kinds of music – good music and bad music – Wainwright’s work comfortably falls into the former category.