The singer-songwriter has gone back to his family folk roots via his new album, Folkocracy, and found it’s not such an uncomfortable place to be
“Our mother was a wonderful mother, a wonderful woman and actually one of the most talented individuals that the world has ever known,” says Rufus. “But she also had a dark side and she was tortured. And somewhat traumatised, really, from her upbringing [in religious Quebec] and from her experiences with divorce and so forth.”
All these songs are close to Wainwright’s heart. He grew up with them in Montreal, where his mother returned after divorcing the perpetually unfaithful Loudon. The project is also a testament to the wonders of his Rolodex. There are duets with Anohni, John Legend, David Byrne and the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs.
The first thing I said when we sat down to negotiate my record contract is, ‘I’m gay – I’m not going to pretend to be anything else.’ It turned out to be a good idea. Along the way it wasn’t easy “The first thing I said when we sat down to negotiate my record contract is, ‘I’m gay – I’m not going to pretend to be anything else.’ It turned out to be a good idea. Along the way it wasn’t easy.”
Much of what we think of North American folk originates in Ireland, and that connection surfaces throughout Folkocracy. Down in the Willow Garden, on which Wainwright duets with Brandi Carlile, is an Appalachian murder ballad with Irish roots and which, melodically and lyrically, shares its DNA with Down by the Sally Gardens, as immortalised in verse by William Butler Yeats.
He also covers Arthur McBride, an old rebel song popularised by Paul Brady in the late 1970s, when it featured on the cult folk record he made with Andy Irvine. It is Brady’s version to which Wainwright pays tribute on Folkocracy. “And so we chose to perform the piece and edit it slightly and move on. I don’t know... this thing of cancel culture in general is tricky. We live in revolutionary times. Everything is up in the air. Everything is up for grabs, everything up for question. That’s just the way the world is. Nothing is certain.”
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