Sing Me the Songs: Celebrating the Works of Kate McGarrigle

I Kate and Anna McGarrigle were the unlikeliest of pop stars, two plain-spoken homebodies raised in the ancient Laurentian mountain range northwest of Montreal, who were taught to play piano by the village nuns and revered worldwide for their clever and candid songwriting. Kate married the similarly quirky singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, a union that bore a second generation of imaginative songwriting in the form of Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

After Kate McGarrigle’s untimely death from cancer, a quartet of high– profile tribute concerts were staged in May and June 2011, taking place in New York, London and Toronto. They provided the raw material for this album, a two-CD set containing 36 of the best concert performances. We hear heartfelt renditions culled from the two sisters’ songbook, delivered by Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright and Anna

McGarrigle, along with musical admirers including Norah Jones, Peggy Seeger, Jenni Muldaur (daughter of Maria), and on one track, a duet by the famously estranged couple Richard and Linda Thompson. Despite a rather funereal atmosphere of raw grief and sombre bereavement, there are a number of standout performances and truly compelling interpretations.