Loudon Wainwright III with Vince Giordano • I’d Rather Lead a Band

Singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, called “The Poet Laureate of Family Dysfunction” by Rolling Stone magazine, might not spring to mind as someone that you’d expect to hear singing the retro-jazz era songs featured on I’d Rather Lead a Band. The 74-year-old Wainwright’s bona fides are solid, as is his place in the pantheon of American Folk Music. A singer-songwriter and actor, he is most known for his confessional and edgy songs, being father of Rufus & Martha Wainwright, (from his marriage to the late Kate McGarrigle) and Lucy Wainwright-Roche (from his relationship with Suzzy Roche), and a stellar recording career that spans 50 years. Wainwright, backed by Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks, assumes the role of jazz vocalist here, and the results are wonderful. Giordano has been the torch-bearer of ’20s & ’30s jazz for 40-plus years, and his band the Nighthawks has been a mainstay on the retro-jazz scene nationally and in NYC, and have done much to keep the spirit of this music alive and kicking. Wainwright and Giordano first worked together on the soundtrack to The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s 2004 Howard Hughes biopic. Vince and Loudon also worked together on the music for the highly acclaimed Prohibition era HBO series Boardwalk Empire. Giordano said, [in a recently recorded Zoom interview], “It’s really a feature for Loudon, we’re really in