Complainte pour Ste Catherine

Two months after the release of our first Warner recording in early 1976 we were asked to send a visual of a song that was getting some attention in Holland. Kate was 8 months pregnant (doesn’t look it) with Martha and because she had some edema the big East coast tour that had been planned got cancelled and we were at home twiddling our thumbs convinced our short-lived music careers were over. Now it turns out somebody somewhere liked something. Timing was everything. I remember it was a weekend and the Quebec WEA company rep arranged for us to lyp-synch before a camera at a TV station in Sherbrooke, QC, 1.5 hrs drive E. of Montreal, the only place that could make the video on short notice. In spite of the sorry-looking tulips, the song became a hit in Holland and Northern Europe. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this clip. It was uploaded to youtube and last.fm by fans. The irony here is that in the Spring of 2009 Kate and I were to fly to Holland to do this same song on a TV show with the Dutch group Alderliefste but because of post-surgery complications Kate had to spend a month in hospital and we never made it over. Complainte pour Ste Catherine indeed. Be careful how you title your songs. Stick to Love Me Do. The song appears on our first Warner record and on French Record (where I’ve written it phonetically – Kumpleint por St Kathryn)

Complainte pour Ste Catherine – Dutch TV 1976

Robert Bower, fan, friend and lover of cats.

Just got the sad and unexpected news that longtime friend and fan Robert Bower died suddenly in NYC yesterday. He was only 62. His beloved mother Ida died a month ago on July 8th and he was heartbroken but bearing up. He had a health problem he was being treated for and seems to have died as a consequence. Here is a pic of Robert and his mum (from a while back) that he sent me in July.
Kate and I first met Robert in 1976 shortly after our first record was released. We were touring in the NYC area and he presented himself backstage after a gig. If memory serves me well, he was with Ron Gomes. Thereafter he would call regularly and send us newspaper clippings of K&A reviews from around the World and he never missed a K&A concert in the NYC area and often travelled further afield to attend if his work schedule permitted. He was a longtime employee of Hotalings News in Times Sq. More recently he worked in Bob Dylan’s office. Robert was probably Leonard Cohen’s biggest fan and many people will remember him from LC’s concerts and ours. He was always taking in stray cats and at one point had what he thought were 2 female kittens which he named Kate and Anna. Kate turned out to be a male (my Kate was supposed to be one..) so he renamed the kitten Kit which was also my father’s nickname for Kate. They are also long gone. Here’s hoping Robert finds all his loved ones on the other side. Adieu old friend.

House of Rufus

Rolls off the tongue nicely, doesn’t it? Somewhere between the House of Windsor and the House of Usher??
Here they all are at soundcheck today. Rufus, Martha, Lily, Calum, Liam, Brad and Thomas.

House of Rufus - Royal Opera House Covent Garden

This Summer

Last Tuesday I drove up to Québec City to see Martha perform at the annual sprawling Festival d’été. There are many stages throughout the City and she was playing Le pigeonnier, a stage Kate and I had played in the mid 90s. I don’t have to tell you, Martha was Magnificent. The audience was in her thrall throughout. At one point she kindly asked me to join her on stage so I could massacre Entre Lajeunesse et la sagesse on the piano while she sang it like an angel. In all the years I’ve sung and sometimes played the bass on that song I had never actually played it on piano. It’s tough! as Barbie would say. I think I’ve got it now. Then Marianne Faithfull took the stage and did a very charming and heartfelt set with her band led by Kate St John.

This week Rufus, Martha, Loudon, Lucy, Brad, Thomas, Calum, Lily, and the Arc of the Covent, are all over in London doing Rufus week at Covent Garden. It sounds like it’s going to be wonderful. Check out Rufus’s site for details of this coming week’s presentations: RUFUS WAINWRIGHT SITE

Kate & Anna go postal.

Wish Kate could be here to see this. The stamp had been in the works for some time so she knew about it and was quite jazzed by the idea. Many thanks to all who made this happen. Coincidentally in the late 80s we did the music for Mike Rubbo’s fantastical kids film ‘Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller.’ If I remember correctly you just had to get yourself onto the stamp and away you went travelling back and forth in time. Wonder if the magic still works?
Canada Post announces stamp

P.S. Joel Z just wrote ‘better than being on a Pinky stamp.’ Throughout the 60s when we lived in TMR, my mother shopped religiously at the Dominion store and collected those stamps you wet with a sponge and stuck in booklets (the premise for Michel Tremblay’s Les belles-soeurs.) When she redeemed what seemed like a huge stack of these she still only had enough for half a set of the Canadian Encyclopedia, a source of great frustration to her daughters when writing term papers. The only other reference books we had was a set (complete) of the American Encyclopedia 1904 edition, still at Gardencourt.

Death and Taxes – a dream?

D R E A M
Death and taxes.

I had a very real dream early this a.m…. I was on my way to a dentist appointment (which I have today) and had dropped by Kate’s place to change my clothes. I had taken the train in. When I got to Querbes I was surprised to see a lot of people I didn’t know, mostly friends of Jorn’s. Ruf and Martha were out at a TV taping for the St Jean. The place was in a state of renovation, an old wood farm sink had replaced the metal one in her previously modern kitchen, a chopping block was sitting in the middle of a room waiting to be appointed. I was walking around with my clothing looking for a place to change and had put them down on a toilet which also now had no door. They fell into the bowl. (what does this mean?) I was fishing these out feeling very self-conscious all the while chitchatting with a very dapper friend of Jorn’s. I went outside. There in an unfinished garage structure with an open front was Kate setting up mic stands for people to perform at the party she was having later when Ruf and Martha showed up. We stared into each other’s eyes. She said Come by after the dentist and I said I can’t, I have to go home to see the accountant about finishing up my taxes for 2010 (which I am in fact doing today). She said Oh. I guess I should do mine too. I said We didn’t earn very much this past year, remembering that she had died, but here she was standing before me very much alive and setting up a stage. So characteristic of Kate. We looked deep into each other’s eyes again, as if to acknowledge we had a secret, that she hadn’t really died after all. I told her The 2009 taxes got done and I’m sure if you’re a little late Revenue Canada won’t mind. She said, I’ll get on them after everyone leaves. Again, so characteristic. At this point an agitated Janie came in with the news that the TV show was cutting a song Rufus had sung with an older local opera singer. They didn’t think it would appeal to the younger audience they were going after…This sure felt like real life to me.

Claude Léveillée R.I.P.

He was one of the great ones. In 1959, Claude L. moved to Paris to write songs with and for Edith Piaf, (Martha did a rocking cover of his ‘Non, la vie n’est pas triste’ on her 2009 Piaf oeuvre.) On his return in 1962, our high-school friend Michèle Forest (and 3rd member of the Trio Canadien) and I went to hear him at l’Estérel in Ste Marguerite where he performed with André Gagnon. They played back-to-back grand pianos and I think maybe Yvon Deschamps was on snare and hi-hat. We were hooked for life. ‘ Je me fous du monde entier quand Frédéric me rappelle les beaux jours de nos vingt-ans’….’Sur un cheval blanc, je t’enmènerai..’ ‘Les vieux pianos’ These songs were played over and over in our house in St Sauveur. Our mother Gaby could never get enough of him, especially after a couple of gins. Au revoir Claude et merci.
Claude L. sings Frederic I think this was our favorite.
Another link to his song ‘Mon pays’ (not Vigneault’s) from 1965. This one made me cry last night. Oh boy.

Rufus and Martha Wainwright sing for la Fête de la St Jean, Parc Maisonneuve, Montréal, le 24 juin 2011

The line-up looks great. Read more about it (in French) FETE NATIONALE – LE 24 JUIN MONTREAL, QC Rufus and Martha are doing a couple of McGarrigle-Tatartcheff tunes and I hear Ruf will duet with Robert Charlebois. We’ll all be there to cheer them on. St John the Baptist has long been the patron saint of nationalist Quebec and his feast day falls June 24 around the time of the Summer Solstice. Lately I’ve discovered the fabulously shocking Richard Strauss opera Salome based on Oscar Wilde’s play and I’ve become more than a little obsessed with John the Baptist, sex-object..I will kiss thy mouth Jokanaan.

Andrew Gold r.i.p.

Very sad news about Andrew Gold. Only 59. Aside from all his high-profile accomplishments Andrew along with Greg Prestopino played that wild duelling guitars thing on Complainte pour Ste Catherine which I always felt put the ‘pop’ in that cut that made it a hit in Northern Europe. Thanks guys. Read about Andrew Gold.

Tell My Sister – Nonesuch 2011

It’s officially out. The first 2 K&A recordings on Warner: Kate & Anna McGarrigle 1976, Dancer with Bruised Knees 1977, plus a 3rd disc of previously unreleased song demos from the time Kate was a solo act in 1971 augmented by some of the 2 of us from 1974 including a couple of tracks with Roma Baran with whom Kate first went to NYC in 1969 to suss out the folk scene. How I wish Kate could be here to see all the great press this is getting. She was beautiful and brilliant and now she’s come alive once more in her songs and she’s brought me back to life. Together again.

Here’s the Nonesuch link Tell My Sister

Here’s the itunes link Tell My Sister