Loudon Wainwright III Explains What It Took To Make Him ‘Rather Lead A Band’

Loudon Wainwright III has done much in his storied career — played to packed houses, released over 20 albums, won a Grammy, dipped his toe into acting, and helmed a distinguished family of artists. But on his latest album, the veteran singer and songwriter puts his guitar and confessional lyrics aside, dons a tux and takes us back to the Jazz Age, with his latest album, I’d Rather Lead a Band.

“I think it is a perfect title track considering that I am a singer songwriter by trade, and so it’s a statement, in fact that, on this particular outing, at any rate, I would rather just be the leader of a wonderful band,” Wainwright tells American Songwriter. Over the course of 14 tracks, Wainwright revives material by the likes of Irving Berlin, Fats Waller and Frank Loesser, ably backed by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks. He learned the melodies for the songs by ear, and the album was recorded in 3 days at Electric Lady studios in New York, in August last year.

Randall Poster, the music supervisor on Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator and the Emmy-winning series Boardwalk Empire, both of which featured Wainwright’s music on their soundtracks, came up with the idea for the album, together with Stewart Lerman. Poster wanted to pair Wainwright’s voice with Giordano’s big band, which has become a much-loved part of the New York City nightclub scene for 30 years. 

Giordano’s own credits include another Scorsese flick, The Irishman, as well as The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. The Grammy-winning bandleader’s 11-piece band The Nighthawks has recorded for a number of movies and TV shows, including last year’s blockbuster, Joker. On Wainwright’s album, Giordano takes on string bass, bass sax and tuba duties, as they bring to 2020 songs from the 1920s — and 1930s too.

With so many classics in the American Songbook to choose from, Wainwright, Poster and Lerman traded ideas back and forth. “We listened, traded mp3s, looked on YouTube at old footage of Bunny Berigan or Louis Armstrong,” Wainwright says. “We considered a lot of material then whittled it down. It was fun to go on the journey of finding the songs. Eventually, I got together with Vince and his wonderful piano player Peter Yarin. We took our big list, then I’d sing through a song, and we all just talked about which ones worked best. That’s how we got it down to the fourteen we chose.”

The title track comes in just over half-way through the album. It’s featured in the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers 1936 musical, Follow the Fleet, but that’s not the version Wainwright sought to re-create. “As wonderful a singer as Fred Astaire is, the version of the song that I like the best was a Bunny Berigan version.” The album also includes a version of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” with the added first verse that isn’t always performed. “The Fats Waller version, I guess you could call it the definitive version,” says Wainwright. “But the version that Randy Poster sent me was a version done by a contemporary of mine, Leon Redbone, who sadly is no longer with us. He did a version of it with a guitar and I think there might even be a violin on it. It’s such a great song, but we just decided to just try to make it our own.”

Leaving his persona of Wainwright behind, he says, was a bit of a kick, even though some of his Wainwright-ness still seeps through in his loose delivery and wry phrasing. “I guess some of me is bound to come through,” he says. “I’m a singer songwriter, but I’ve also been singing in public and singing in recording studios for 50 years. I like to think that — well, I know that — I am a good singer, in fact. There’s no reason to be coy. But I was surprised and delighted and somewhat shocked when we were able to make this record. I jumped at the opportunity. It was really fun. I’m a fan of Vince and the band, and it was just a great pleasure to work on the project.”

As a lyricist, Wainwright particularly enjoyed getting to do play around with the goofy and risqué, “Give It To Mary With Love.” “I have novelty songs, silly songs, that I’ve always enjoyed putting in my shows,” he says. “Making the audience laugh as much as possible. I have a lot of affinity and appreciation for that song because it is a lot of fun.”

While the songs hark back to the past, there is a freshness to them. “I didn’t say it, but somebody said the record is kind of anti-nostalgia, in a way,” says Wainwright. “There’s nothing wrong with nostalgia, but the trick was to try to make it sound present, and romantic, but not necessarily romantic in that it has to be ‘20s and ‘30s romantic. The songs themselves are just so beautifully constructed and well written. If you take a song, like, “Ship Without a Sail,” the lyrics of that are kind of poetry. And so, you like to think, or we hope anyway, that people now, in 2020, would be moved by the songs and the power of the songs.”