A Mother's Love: An Interview with Martha Wainwright

In November 2009, Martha Wainwright gave birth to her first child in London. After a difficult and life-threatening labour, her son spent the first few weeks of life in an incubator. At the same time, 3,000 miles away in Montreal, Wainwright's mother, the acclaimed folk singer Kate McGarrigle, battled against the sarcoma which ravaged her body. Kate died in January 2010.

It is against this intense emotional backdrop - becoming a mother and losing her mother in quick succession - that Wainwright's astonishing album, Come Home To Mama, was created. The new songs are a roller coaster of grief, anger, pain and joy. Produced by Yuka C. Honda (as opposed the usual choice of Martha's husband, Brad Albetta) and featuring Wilco's Nels Cline on guitar,Come Home To Mama also adds Thomas Bartlett's synths and a sprinkling of looped beats to Wainwright's extraordinary vocal range and rabidly honest words.

Music

A painter paints pictures on canvas.  But musicians paint their pictures on silence.  ~Leopold Stokowski


Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.  ~Berthold Auerbach


All deep things are song.  It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls!  ~Thomas Carlyle


If the King loves music, it is well with the land.  ~Mencius


Without music life would be a mistake.  ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche


Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons.  You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body.  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes


If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.  ~Gustav Mahler


Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass?  ~Michael Torke

'I'm getting out from the shadows'

P Albetta

Bass Player Recording/Touring Credits:

- Rufus Wainwright

- Kate and Anna McGarrigle

- Sean Lennon

- Teddy Thompson

- Martha Wainwright

- Pete Townsend 

- Linda Thompson

- Willie Nile

- Freedy Johnston 

- Pheobe Snow

- Natalie Grant

- Robert Lamm (Chicago) 

- Ben Lee

- Jennifer Marks

- Mary Me Jane

- Marylees Corvette

- Surfing Moses

- Bret Reily

- Amy Rigby

- Jenni Muldour

- Emmylou Harris

- Donald Fagen

- Stan Harrison

- Serena Jost

- Royal 7

- Money Shot

- Ed Harcourt

- Beth Orton

- Sara Wendt

- My Fine Friend Phil

- Hank Kim

- My Friend Phil

- RIch Freeth

- Preston Smith

Production/Engineering Credits:

* engineer

~ mix engineer

+ producer

- Martha Wainwright *+ ~

- Teddy Thompson * + ~

- Rufus Wainwright *

- Angus and Julia Stone *

- Freedy Johnston * +

- Willie Nile +

- PM Dawn +

- The Honey Brothers * + ~

- Justin Bond * ~

- Ana Silvera * + ~

- Kami Thompson *+ ~

- Linda Draper * + ~

- Jon Regen * ~

- Serena Jost * + ~

- Kim Garrison * + ~

- Addie Brownlee * + ~

- Garth Hudson +

- Jennifer Marks * + ~

- Pela +

- Lisa Redford * + ~

- Sad Little Stars * + ~

- Amanda Thorpe * + ~

- Atoosa * + ~

- Edible Red +

- Tessa Perry + 

- Anna Jarosz * +

- Joel Stein * +

- DePoet *+

- Sasha Zand *

- The Ramblers *