Loudon Wainwright, daughter team up for shows at Wolf Trap, Rams Head

Loudon Wainwright III is a storyteller. Since he first picked up a guitar and began entertaining anyone who would listen, he has been a font of witty, philosophical comments about life, everyman’s challenges and his own failings. Fans of the two-time Grammy nominee will take a nostalgic journey to the past with him and his special guest, daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche. A portion of the show, performed at both the Barns of Wolf Trap and Rams Head, will be devoted to “Recovery.” Released in 2008, the collection of songs spanning his career reflects youthful memories and adult regrets. The title, he advises, can mean anything from an archaeological dig into his musical archives to confirmation that he has survived and endured.

“I spent time with my producer, Joe Henry, going back over songs people like and some I hadn’t thought about for a while,” he said. “We concentrated on my first four records, songs I’d written during the early 1970s, and found that they held up.”

Wainwright’s songs paint word pictures driven by his flair for colorful language inherited from his journalist father. They tell of “School Days” during which he rowed on a lake in Delaware reciting poetry by Keats and Blake to an audience of frogs, and they point out the drawbacks of a show business career in “Saw Your Name in the Paper.” “The Drinking Song” follows drunkards staggering and falling down as their personalities vacillate from friendly to hostile, while “Be Careful, There’s a Baby in the House” cautions new parents that their children will emulate whatever they do.

Perhaps the most exciting portion of his show will be selections from “High Wide and Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project.” In his quest to search for and record the music of the North Carolina singer and banjo picker, Wainwright has become the Alan Lomax of his time.

The tribute opens and ends with “High Wide and Handsome,” his own tip of the hat to the alcoholic mill worker who sang his heart out and died young. The two-volume collection emulates the upbeat moments of Poole’s life in toe-tapping numbers like “I Took My Gal Out Walkin’,” “Movin’ Day” and “Ragtime Annie.” Between the lines is the somber realization that the man who swore “Goodbye Booze” and lamented his “Ramblin’ Blues” is truly “The Man in the Moon,” a traveling musician who popped in and out of his family home and reality until his untimely demise.

Wainwright acknowledges the uncanny resemblance of his voice to Poole’s as heard on recordings preserved from the Prohibition Era. While working on the project, he visited Poole’s grave in North Carolina, the mill where he worked and the spot where his home sat. Wainwright is so captivated by Poole and his musical gifts that he considers Poole worthy of induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Looking back on his own career, Wainwright is most grateful for having others like Johnny Cash and his son Rufus record his songs. No doubt Poole would concur with his observation, “As a musician, when other people record your music, it’s a kick.”