Whilst on holiday recently I bought, amongst others, the following albums....
- Career Moves by Loudon Wainwright III
- Want Two by Rufus Wainwright
Yep. Father and son. Rufus is the son of Loudon III and Kate McGarrigle. So he has two parents with serious musical credentials - and he has gone into the "family business" (though only in the broadest sense, he doesn't borrow much stylistically from either parent)
Now it is not always the case that children of good musicians adopt their parent's talents. However the Wainwright's seeming to be making a fair fist of it.
Starting from the top we have Loudon III and his sister Sloan. Sloan is a singer/songwriter with several CDs to her name.
Then we have from Loudon's marriage to Kate McGarrigle two children - Rufus and Martha who are both pro musicians with recording contracts, doing live work etc. etc.
After divorcing Kate McGarrigle, Loudon married Suzzy Roche (of The Roches) and they had a child Lucy. Lucy Wainwright-Roche is also a recording artist, working musician etc....
Then Sloan Wainwright's kid Sam McTavey is also working as a singer/songwriter building a career for himself.
Anybody know of other such dynasties?
The other one that occurs to me revolves around Richard Thompson. He had three kids with ex-wife and singing partner Linda and two of them, Teddy and Kamilla, have gone into the family business. Teddy has 3 or 4 discs out now and does quite a lot of live work. Kamilla has an album recorded but not, AFAIK, distributed yet.
Both kids were significantly involved in mother Linda's late and unexpected comeback (she had had severe problems that made it very difficult for her to sing).
Richard's son from his second marriage is in his teens and playing bass with bands in the bay area. His grandson via his oldest daughter, Zak Hobbs, is making a name for himself in London as a hot guitarist. But I'm not sure there's enough contracts there yet to indicate that the various sprogs intend to go into the family business, so they don't quite challenge the Wainwrights - especially when you factor in Rufus and Martha's mum who is still active.
Kamilla Thompson has already been on a tour with Sean Lennon.
