Martha Wainwright - ‘never nervous, always ballsy’ and onstage from the age of eight

Martha Wainwright is a key member of the Wainwright/McGarrigle clan, all of them big favourites of ours. She’s currently on her 20th anniversary tour and looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which involves …

… growing up in a folk dynasty in Montreal.  

… the sight of Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen, backing singers on Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man tour, “who made me want to be onstage too”.

… the story of ‘Matapedia’, the song Kate McGarrigle wrote when an old boyfriend thought she was her teenage daughter.  

… her first shows playing Elvis, Dylan and Woody Guthrie songs on the coffeehouse circuit.

… singing with her brother Rufus and her cousins with Kate & Anna McGarrigle at folk festivals.

… onstage at the Roches’ Christmas shows in New York.

… the time her brother stole the show over Emmylou Harris: “I thought I want that kind of attention!”

… seeing Pink Floyd’s The Wall in a Montreal hockey stadium, aged 9 – “a very marking experience”.

… the songs of her mother’s she always plays: “I’m obsessed with her legacy”.

Martha Wainwright 20th Anniversary tour tickets here: https://marthawainwright.com/shows

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