Description
Loudon Wainwright III was born to make this record. His ebullient personality bounces through every song on I’d Rather Lead a Band, and his scampering vocals chase the band’s rhythms across the dance floor.
A collaboration with Vince Giordano and his band The Nighthawks, and producer and music supervisor Randall Poster, the 14-song collection is described as “a loose, fresh, and “anti-nostalgic” take on classic songs from the 1920s and ‘30s featuring Wainwright as singer and band leader.”
As interpreters of the Great American Songbook, Wainwright and Giordano’s big band go through a supper club set, including songs by Irving Berlin, Fats Waller (‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’) and Frank Loesser (‘More I Cannot Wish You’)… many of the selections informed & inspired by the expansive record collection of Loudon’s father – the LIFE Magazine columnist Loudon Wainwright. Recorded in just 3 days at Electric Lady Studios…there is a joyful approach of immediacy & familiarity with these timeless songs, recorded in just 3 days at Electric Lady Studios..
For Wainwright, the project was also a welcome chance to take a break from playing his guitar and singing in what he calls his “somewhat misanthropic, occasionally goofy persona.” “I loved the idea of just being a vocalist,” he says. “It was freeing, and such a pleasure to settle back with this marvellous band and sing these songs.”
