Loudon Wainwright III

If Loudon Wainwright III wanted to release his greatest hits, he could put out a single with
"Dead Skunk" on one side and a live version of the same song on the other. Instead, the
dauntless Wainwright's eighth album. A Live One, is a comprehensive (except for "Dead
Skunk") and cracked compendium of one lunatic's refusal to deal with the world on any
terms other than his own. Who else would say to his infant son, in a tune called "... More >

The cheap seats are the only seats at a Wainwright show, and too often he plays to them, but here the screwy faces and strangled diction and spastic phrasing and easy jokes are kept in check. It's not as if his albums are so ornately orchestrated that the man-and-his-guitar format is a breath of fresh air. But he's a singer-songwriter who deserves a best-of, and this will do till he gets it. (Grade: B+)