Loudon Wainwright III

Over the years, Loudon Wainwright III has written about being a husband, a father and a son; an adulterer, a lover, a first-class guilt-tripper, a defensive SOB who'll take the blame but not without getting his witty licks in first. On his early records, the songs were superb and self-centered. In recent years, they've been frequently just as superb, but more outwardly directed. Wainwright's songs about the death of his mother were a kind of breakthrough for him, and he continues that work here, but now about his father, Loudon Wainwright Jr., who died in 1988 at age 63. Now 65, the singer-songwriter uses this as a jumping-off point for his new collection, "Older then My Old Man Now.