Kate and Anna McGarrigle. (RIP Kate 2010)

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Here's a chance to talk about the McGarrigle sisters, Kate and Anna. Inspired of course by the recently-revived Rufus Wainwright thread (Rufus is the son of Kate McG. and Loudon Wainwright III).

I was once -- it was back in high school -- madly in love with these two. I had all their records, including the elusive Pronto Monto. I've seen them twice in concert. Over the past few years I sort of lost interest, and I gave a few of their (more recent) records to my mother. But I pulled out Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Dance with Bruised Knees, and French Record tonight for the first time in a long time, and good gosh they're wonderful.

The harmonies these two get are really without comparison. The closest I've heard is (of all things) a little-known record of two blind evangelists, The Music of Reverend Baybie Hoover & Virginia Brown, on Philo:

And of course the McGarrigles have named the Boswell Sisters as an inspiration.

Sort of curious what you think of these gals, esp. the later records like Heartbeats Accelerating and Matapedia which I've never made up my mind about. The only other person I've met who's been a McGarrigle's fan (aside from people at concerts, and my mother who fell victim to my teenage proselytizings) was my Western philos. professor in college.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 9 March 2003 07:18 (10 years ago) Permalink

nouvelles réponses

― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 9 March 2003 07:20 (10 years ago) Permalink

Can someone with a greater musical literacy explain to me what makes their voices so unique? They possess a very peculiar vibrato, but I can't describe it much better than that.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 9 March 2003 07:40 (10 years ago) Permalink

their voices, i cant describe what it is about them , but god, i saw both of them at the folk fest this year, and how do i say this, amazing.

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 9 March 2003 08:03 (10 years ago) Permalink

I love them.There is just something eerie and ancient about their voices. Yet soothing too. I hope I don't scare anybody away from them by saying that as a kid I really liked Buffy St.Marie's records and in some ways they remind me of each other.Just some same kind of wisdom in the stories they tell and a knowledge that things are not always as they seem in the world.A whispering keening quality that is unsettling and instructive. And also just kinda goofy and shaggy and fun at times as well! I love Matapedia.Very unique and cool.Their french songs are beautiful.Um,I guess I am a fan.

― Scott Seward, Sunday, 9 March 2003 08:12 (10 years ago) Permalink

Dancer With Bruised Knees is one of my favorite albs EVAH... "Southern Boys" w/ that marvelous halting loping ragtime light-opera piano and those sighing swooping "ahhh" harmonies and those double entendres...

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 9 March 2003 08:26 (10 years ago) Permalink

Buffy St Marie rules Scott.

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 9 March 2003 17:37 (10 years ago) Permalink

I love Buffy,I just wasn't sure what people's preconceptions were.If people thought she was a strident vibrato-y harridan than they might not be so quick to check out kate and anna and they should.They might not know how great a lot of her songs were.Buffy is probably the reason why when I first heard the throwing muses they sounded perfectly normal to me.I would still love to hear Kristen Hersh do a version of "Little Wheel Spin & Spin". Actually,thinking about Buffy,Kristen and Kate and Anna makes me realize what that unsettling quality is that their voices have at times(and at other times they sound like angels):It's a child-like crone thing.Half-witch,half-baby left in the dark snowy woods.Mary Margaret O'Hara as well.Stevie too,I guess.

― Scott Seward, Sunday, 9 March 2003 18:45 (10 years ago) Permalink

I was thinking that they (Anna and Kate) have perfected a certain style of affected naivete in their songwriting and singing--which honestly can be grating in large doses but very affecting when it's done right and hits you at the right time. One reason a few of their songs are built on lullabies and nursery rhymes. "Heart Like a Wheel" is a perfect example. The metaphors are clumsy but more stirring for that (compared say to some elaborate song-length Jackson Browne metaphor).

I guess you can categorize them (along with LWIII and others) as the punks of the singer-songwriter movement, asserting a sort of childlike DIY enthusiasm and simplicity. But their later stuff veers toward a more traditional internal-dialogue singer-songwriter mode which is why I have to consider it differently.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 9 March 2003 19:03 (10 years ago) Permalink

Matapedia has its share of baby talk though. Even a french version of Jack and Jill where they head to america to find jobs.

― Scott Seward, Sunday, 9 March 2003 19:10 (10 years ago) Permalink

Or french-canuck version I should say.

― Scott Seward, Sunday, 9 March 2003 19:11 (10 years ago) Permalink

"Jacques Et Gilles" is the title. The song "Why Must We Die?" is truly creepy amd truly great.I like all their records,but Matapedia,was a big surprise to me because I really wasn't expecting to be surprised. It's an ambitious album.

― Scott Seward, Sunday, 9 March 2003 19:21 (10 years ago) Permalink

I bought Dancer with Bruised Knees in a dollar bin after reading so much good stuff about them, and couldn't even make it through the record. I've never wanted to put it on again; I may have even thrown it out. Maybe one day I'll get curious again.

― Sean (Sean), Sunday, 9 March 2003 20:22 (10 years ago) Permalink

The McGarrigle Hour (w/guest spots from Rufus, Martha and Loudon, plus Linda Rondstadt and others) is a really nice way to hear the latter-day K&A stuff. I like them but don't know their work nearly well enough. Gotta rectify that one of these days

― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 9 March 2003 20:25 (10 years ago) Permalink

Matos, ignore Sean. Get Dancer With Bruised Knees. It's luverly.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 9 March 2003 20:39 (10 years ago) Permalink

The McGarrigle Hour is inconsistent but has some very nice things on it -- Irving Berlin's "What'll I Do," Cole Porter's "Allez Vous-En," the standard "Alice Blue Gown."

Martha Wainwright has a beeeeeeaaaaauuuutiful voice.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 9 March 2003 20:45 (10 years ago) Permalink

I have Dancer with Bruised Knees, Jody. I just never play it.

― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 9 March 2003 20:51 (10 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

I bought there first album after a friend played me Complainte pour ste-catherine. I'm now completely obsessed and in love with it. The question is though: why did they avoid becoming a college girl staple record in the *Joni* fashion?

Is it that they came along too late? that they're names make them sound folkier than they are?

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 17 May 2004 09:18 (9 years ago) Permalink

both are probably true -- why aren't the roches more famous in that respect?

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 17 May 2004 09:29 (9 years ago) Permalink

i used to listen to this stuff a lot more, but i've been a little wainwrighted out in the last few years.

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 17 May 2004 09:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

I love the first album. Just wanted to say that.

― de, Monday, 17 May 2004 12:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

First record is great - very old-fashioned and sweet. What spurred the whole turn of the century revival in the 70s? For a time, it seemed like really old-timey music was in vogue (see this, Randy Newman, ragtime, The Band)

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 17 May 2004 12:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

Well I'd say that began in the psychedelic period, something to do with the collective nostalgia and mythmaking brought about by the hallucinogenics (in Britain we had music hall, nursery rhymes and Wind in the Willows, recalling childhood rather than the infancy of popular music).

― de, Monday, 17 May 2004 12:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

I blame Bonnie & Clyde

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 17 May 2004 12:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

They were very naughty.

― de, Monday, 17 May 2004 12:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

hmmm. I find the British appropriation of Music hall and Nursery Rhymes into psychedelia completely repulsive; perhaps becuase its generally a badly done welding of two disparate types of music. In American music, it is however just a replaying of rock'n'roll's roots and so works well.

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 17 May 2004 13:24 (9 years ago) Permalink

Wallace...

― ___ (___), Monday, 17 May 2004 13:33 (9 years ago) Permalink

Horizontal?

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 17 May 2004 13:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

Indeed. McGarrigle mania in Glasgow, then.

― ___ (___), Monday, 17 May 2004 13:57 (9 years ago) Permalink

Sign me up on the "love them" side, especially for "French Record." Off-topic rep for another album: "Sugar For Sugar, Salt For Salt" by Sylvia Tyson, a nice, McGarrrigle-esque later album from her that features guitar & engineering by a then-young Danny Lanois.

― briania (briania), Monday, 17 May 2004 16:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

oh! "sugar for sugar, salt for salt" is a quote from one of my favouritest songs 'James Alley Blues'...

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:14 (9 years ago) Permalink

wally are you going to see kate/anna/martha/rufus at the concert hall? sis p and i are going, come with!

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:20 (9 years ago) Permalink

oh, i would but i'm so pitifully shorta cash. i might try and save up a few pennies, it isn't too expensive is it? and to be accompanied by such delightful [ ]ists would be a rare treat!

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:22 (9 years ago) Permalink

£18-50 or £15 but i imagine it will be worth every penny.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:32 (9 years ago) Permalink

indeed. those voices! i haven't hear her weans, so i should go download something (well, i've gotta save up 4 the concert...). recommendations?

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:33 (9 years ago) Permalink

....heard her weans....

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

"Vibrate" by rufus is on the "other" site. check out poses, in your arms, and in a graveyard also by rufus. i have not heard Martha.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:38 (9 years ago) Permalink

btw i reckon the gig will sell out soon.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

has anyone heard the new (all french i believe) record?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 17 May 2004 19:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

7 months pass...

(Talk To Me Of) Mendocino is great.

― youn, Friday, 24 December 2004 04:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

I like the French language songs on Dancer with Bruised Knees better than the ones on this album, though.

― youn, Friday, 24 December 2004 04:09 (8 years ago) Permalink

i sort of wonder what about them excited me so much at one point, but i still like them i guess

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 24 December 2004 06:46 (8 years ago) Permalink

I've got the s/t and Dancer With Bruised Knees on vinyl from a dollar bin for the Canadiana, to be honest, and while I do enjoy them, I rarely put them on. I mean to, but it never seems to happen. I do like them, though.

My mother really liked Matapedia, and I remember liking it a lot myself when she had it on. Perhaps I'll borrow it and give it a try.

― derrick (derrick), Friday, 24 December 2004 07:53 (8 years ago) Permalink

I'm in Mendocino right now. (Talk To Me Of) New York City, seriously.

― Steely Zan (AaronHz), Friday, 24 December 2004 07:58 (8 years ago) Permalink

I like the early albums and Matapedia a lot, but I have one on cassette from in between -- the '80s, sometime -- and it's got inappropriately boomy production and the songs aren't as good either.

"Goin' Back to Harlan" (from Matapedia) is spooky and pretty and somewhere in my long list of favorite songs.

As to what it is about their voices, I have no idea from a technical standpoint (like, what kind of harmonies they sing, but to me it sounds a little like they sing away from each other -- like there's a natural tug of their voices toward each other, but they fight it a little. There's harmonic tension there, which creates a little distortion or a weird kind of space between the voices. I don't know if it's a sister thing or a Canadian thing or just the way they learned how to sing together, but it usually keeps them from sounding too sweet (which is a danger, given the natural sweetness of the voices individually).

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 25 December 2004 06:45 (8 years ago) Permalink

Never heard 'em aside from "The Log-Driver's Waltz", whose animated National Film Board of Canada I coincidentally just viewed last week.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Saturday, 25 December 2004 20:04 (8 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

French Record is my fave that I've heard, tho I'm basically obsessed w/"complainte pour ste-catherine" which is also on 1st. downloading love over and over now

― Dominique, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:41 (5 years ago) Permalink

there are some really good tunes on that, my other favorite is the first one.

― sleeve, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:08 (5 years ago) Permalink

I saw them live once at Glastonbury. They had one of their daughters with them, subsequently revealed i) to be Martha Wainwright and ii) to be off her nuts on E at the time. They were very impressive, and I wish I had not left them to go see Air.

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 22:22 (5 years ago) Permalink

They had one of their daughters with them, subsequently revealed i) to be Martha Wainwright and ii) to be off her nuts on E at the time.

Martha Wainwright has nuts!?

― sonofstan, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 22:41 (5 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

Kate McGarrigle RIP.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/neilmccormick/100006239/kate-mcgarrigle-death-of-a-matriarch/

― mike t-diva, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 12:56 (3 years ago) Permalink

oh shit!

― henri grenouille (Frogman Henry), Tuesday, 19 January 2010 13:07 (3 years ago) Permalink

RIP

The debut album was there at a very important time in my life. You made me very happy Kate.

― henri grenouille (Frogman Henry), Tuesday, 19 January 2010 13:08 (3 years ago) Permalink

Goddamn. They're dropping like flies. RIP.

― Jazzbo, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 13:51 (3 years ago) Permalink

so sad! love her.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 14:17 (3 years ago) Permalink

oh man.

such a bad time for montreal musicians.

― fleetwood (s1ocki), Tuesday, 19 January 2010 15:10 (3 years ago) Permalink

is one of them the crazy woman who wanted you to go on a musical cruise with her in tv commercials that got overplayed in atlantic canada? (i am doubtful, but the name sounds familiar)

― abanana, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 15:42 (3 years ago) Permalink

such an alive person

― sean gramophone, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 15:46 (3 years ago) Permalink

ugh, RIP, Kate! that first McGarrigle Sisters record is brutally good. Was actually sometimes too emotional for me to listen to before, now it's gonna be even more so.

― tylerw, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 15:46 (3 years ago) Permalink

RIP :(

― Dominique, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 15:56 (3 years ago) Permalink

Sad to say that my only awareness of their work is through Billy Bragg's version of "Heart Like A Wheel", which I just found to be a heart-wrenchingly sad song. When I sought out their original it didn't affect me as much, for some reason. I also saw them do a beautiful version of Leonard Cohen's "Winter Lady" at the Cohen tribute show in Brighton.

― anagram, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 16:05 (3 years ago) Permalink

I really love Kate & Anne. My mom played them all the time when I was a kid and I scooped up their records on vinyl when my mom got rid of her record player. Years after that I played them. Up late one night, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes and feeling nostalgic. Probably that Nick Cave record they sang on made me curious again.

Even though I knew every song, it was a huge surprise to me how good it was - idiot that I am. Just great songwriting and just a really smart, cool, down-to-earth feel to it - very anglo Montrealer in attitude all around. Sounds way more like real people in the real world than Joni or Buffy to me - not that that's neccessarily the best thing all the time, but it sure worked for them.

RIP Kate.

― Brio, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 17:10 (3 years ago) Permalink

"complainte pour ste-catherine" is my favourite too!

― Brio, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 17:15 (3 years ago) Permalink

oh no. i was wondering why this thread had been revived. r.i.p., i love kate & anna.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 19 January 2010 17:15 (3 years ago) Permalink

― Megadeth Panel (Ówen P.), Tuesday, 19 January 2010 17:18 (3 years ago) Permalink

xpost and now nonxpost oh is that the same song Kirsty McColl did once?

― Mark G, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 17:18 (3 years ago) Permalink

Sounds way more like real people in the real world than Joni or Buffy to me - not that that's neccessarily the best thing all the time, but it sure worked for them.
yeah, this is otm -- i feel like the mcgarrigle's best stuff was way more down to earth and concerned with the quotidian than a lot of 70s singer-songwriters (kinda like Loudon come to think of it). Just that there's a real-life mix of humor/sadness/dignity ... I dunno, not explaining it well.

― tylerw, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 17:39 (3 years ago) Permalink

So sad. Some of the best sounding records ever. Hi-fi lo-fi. They gave off a vibe of "we're just sitting around the living room, playing music and harmonizing -- anyone can do this." Kind of like the Ramones, in that sense.

― Thus Sang Freud, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 18:24 (3 years ago) Permalink

thanks Owen, great version of that, kinda way better than the lite reggae on the record(s)

― Dominique, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 18:55 (3 years ago) Permalink

It's actually an Anna song but so beautiful. And I'm into the drummer, he's got a good look.

Very sad today about Kate's death.

― Megadeth Panel (Ówen P.), Tuesday, 19 January 2010 20:12 (3 years ago) Permalink

aw, this sucks. a great talent.

RIP.

― sleeve, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 20:41 (3 years ago) Permalink

So sad. They made music for adults -- very rare in today's world.

― mottdeterre, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 20:55 (3 years ago) Permalink

really sad to hear this
i did always have trouble figuring out which one was kate and which one was anna

― velko, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 21:01 (3 years ago) Permalink

Proserpina - a newly written song, performed about a month ago. View with caution if you're a sentimental type.

― Brio, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 22:02 (3 years ago) Permalink

― velko, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 11:34 (3 years ago) Permalink

I hurt. Why must we die?

― Kevin John Bozelka, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 13:28 (3 years ago) Permalink

this is awful. hit me in the gut. poor kate.

― figuratively, but in a very real way (amateurist), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 19:14 (3 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

the title track of Dancer with Bruised Knees is really sounding great for me these days - kinda slept on it when i first bought the record but totally loving it now

― buzza, Sunday, 27 March 2011 04:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

http://www.mcgarrigles.com/uncategorized/tell-my-sister-nonesuch-2011

― buzza, Sunday, 8 May 2011 00:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

love the cover

anyone heard this yet? demos any good? guess it is bargain priced for a 3-CD set, so I'll probably end up getting it.

― tylerw, Friday, 13 May 2011 19:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

Remastered versions of the first two albums PLUS a third disc of demos all for the price of around one CD? Hells yes this is worth it, especially for anyone who doesn't already have the first two albums already! Haven't heard the third disc yet, but it's in the queue!

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 13 May 2011 20:37 (2 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

so yeah, anyone who likes these ladies needs to get the new comp. the demos disc is astounding.

― tylerw, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 15:36 (1 year ago) Permalink

and the remastered sound on the two albums is fab too. coming around on dancer with bruised knee, which i sort of neglected in facvor of the debut. how did i miss that john cale plays on it?

― tylerw, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 15:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

lol, just searched out this thread to tell everyone that the new comp is sooooo good! and as is apparent from the last two posts, no one cares! i care!
there's one song on the demos disc "annie" which is just a gut punch of a performance. seems to be a cover of a song by someone named chaim tannenbaum?

― tylerw, Friday, 14 October 2011 18:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

10 months pass...

The self-titled is just completely ripe for discussion. Such an interesting intersection between brash almost-showtune style, NYC folksinger, 70s singer-songwriter, French-Canadian folksong, and French chanson. It has a vibe that I can't quite find an analogue to, but seems familiar and comfortably lived-in at the same time. French-Canadian Laura Nyro? Anyways, like I say...I'd love to see more discussion of particularly the debut, but really anything they've put out, if anyone's interested. I haven't heard the comp that tylerw mentions. I will have to seek it out.

― softspool, Monday, 10 September 2012 04:37 (8 months ago) Permalink

also, need to add my voice to the claim that "Heart Like A Wheel" is among the most devastating songs re: heartbreak ever.

― softspool, Monday, 10 September 2012 04:47 (8 months ago) Permalink

I agree, although I'm always bothered by the niggling suspicion that a bent wheel could actually be mended quite easliy.

― bham, Monday, 10 September 2012 08:41 (8 months ago) Permalink

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