Kate and Anna McGarrigle. (RIP Kate 2010)

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.

Martha Wainwright has a beeeeeeaaaaauuuutiful voice.

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

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.

"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).

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

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

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.

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!?

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)

such an alive person

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.

RIP :(

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.

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.

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyjG0Tk3HFQ

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

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.

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.

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

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.

aw, this sucks. a great talent.

RIP.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb2x9uZVPek

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xzwJVNTNKs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcbIjfLYxOY

I hurt. Why must we die?

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

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

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

love the cover
http://www.mcgarrigles.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mcgarrigle-tell-my-sister-280x248.jpg
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.

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!

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

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?

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?

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.

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

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

Has anyone listened to the album taken from the tribute concert yet? I don't wanna say it's my fave album of the year, but it's certainly the one I've listened to the most thus far.

the highs are real high

Justin Vivian Bond's "The Work Song" is a showstopper.

<3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUr8MJYAjRk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahNmtiUb4YI

Scored an inexpensive yet near-mint vinyl copy of the debut today. This really is one of the greatest albums ever.

Everyone got Anna and Janey's memoir, right?

Didn't know it existed! How is it?

Belated shout out to my former upstairs neighbor who was blasting Dancer With Bruised Knees loud enough that I was able to Shazam "Naufragée du Tendre (Shipwrecked)" through the walls. Such a lovely album.

Several things on this thread I need to check---and there was a box set, right?
From my blogged Pazz & Jop comments on 2016:
Reissues:
Kate & Anna McGarrigle's Pronto Monto starts strangely, with olde folkie warbles over tasty yachty licks. And these top-paid studio pros should never be asked to play a straight-fwd guitar shuffle. But in terms of at least gettin' concise-if-not-always-down sounds, and thematically appropriate melodic-harmonic explorations, Kate McG. is the Lennon figure here, with Anna the moonier McCartney. Then again, her "Park Fixture" is dynamically *about* an obsesso romantic, as written and performed from that POV. (And she tries to get more concise, "I love my kid" etc.) So far seems like about half of this album works pretty well after all. Do like Kate's solo voice more than the duets.
So easy gratuitous comparisons to males, but at least musically high-standard males, was apparently the thot, if any.

The box was a three-disc set w/the first two albums and a disc of demos/outtakes.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTIsIkm73TBU6zSuhvKS44JotKDkol5UdVi7Q&usqp=CAU

Tell My Sister

Overall, I consider myself a fan; but though the decline in quality wasn't steep or complete, I would include them on the list of "artists whose every record was weaker than the previous one" (caveat: I haven't heard the French albums).

Maybe Matapedia was an improvement on Heartbeats Accelerating? Certainly their best is their debut, and their 2nd is second-best.

I prefer the second album to the first, but they're both absolutely top-shelf

Xgau on a couple of collections:

Odditties [Querbeservice, 2010]
A hodgepodge segmented to make sense as a sampler, all recorded by 1990 and most well before, consisting of: 1) Four Stephen Foster weepers, two Civil War and two early death, harmonized prettily instead of tartly. They're saccharine, yes, but wittingly so, and exposure plus comparison with a Foster comp I like convinced me that this was the most effective rendering of 19th-century parlor music I knew. 2) Two by Canadian folk icon Wade Hemsworth, a McGarrigles staple in their Mountain City Four days--the first a waltz that motorvates plenty after those weepers, the second in 5/4 and over my fundament. 3) A Quebecois encore done live in '76 and a Cajun two-step studio-stomped. Both leap the language barrier. 4) Four lost McGarrigles songs, three by Anna and a collaborator, one by Kate alone. All are worthy, two wondrous: Anna's threnody for her cat Louis, which is slight, and Kate's love song to Martha and her dolls, which is wiry. Play it for someone you love on Mother's Day. But be sure to check it out yourself first. A-

Tell My Sister [Nonesuch, 2011]
Since these "demos and unreleased recordings 1971-1974" are part of a superbly designed and moderately priced little box that also includes their extraordinary Warner Bros. albums of 1976 and 1977, I should specify that my grade is for the bonus disc, which although it includes only five titles unavailable in later versions is one of the most useful I know. Much as I love the debut, its intelligent gloss is no longer needed to put the music across; on the demos, spare piano highlights voices we now know to be delectable without the subtlest sweetening. Proudly selling herself, Kate especially is more forthright and less cunning--and also, poignantly, younger. In a few cases--I'd name "Kiss & Say Goodbye," "Tell My Sister," and "Blues in E"--the demos are even preferable. Special thanks too for Chaim Tannenbaum's unheard "Annie." And then there's the great prize: Kate's newly unearthed "Saratoga Summer Song," a fond, funny, ruefully dissolute chronicle of a hippie summer that casually epitomizes both concepts--not just "hippie," but "summer." A
(Tyler was asking upthread about Chaim T; he's a Wainwright-McG. family friend [or relative?] who has never released an album in the Lower 50, far as I know, but is also on The McGarrigle Hour and I guess could be on some related round-ups)

Xgau on the Kate tribute (his description reminding me that the new Martha album is wild, also awesome): https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/music/mcgarrigle-11.php

anna's son sylvan released a lovely little debut album earlier this year:
https://open.spotify.com/album/46OPGXyDpECrypjQvgwLkV

From Omnivore:

Mountain City Four
Mountain City Four
Release date: September 23, 2022

Description
Historic, early recordings from Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s beginnings as members of the Mountain City Four.
In 1963, Jack Nissenson and Peter Weldon recruited Kate McGarrigle to form a trio. A few months later, Kate’s sister Anna joined, and the group became the Mountain City Four. Playing locally at Montreal folk clubs, the band developed a loyal and substantial following and played into the 1970s.

Kate and Anna began writing songs which were passed from friend to friend, and eventually found their way into the repertoires of Maria Muldaur and Linda Ronstadt. While in L.A singing backups on Maria’s first record, they were invited by Greg Prestopino to record a few of their other compositions. Greg passed the demo on to Warner Brothers Records who quickly offered Kate and Anna their own recording contract and they were off and running. For several years, the Mountain City Four continued as the opening act for Kate and Anna’s live shows and contributed backup vocals and instrumentals to the sisters’ early studio recordings.

The McGarrigles origins shine brightly on Mountain City Four which contains sixteen previously unissued recordings from 1963–1964, 1969–70, and a final one in 2012 two years after Kate’s passing which featured members of the Mountain City Four’s extended family. The tracks include classics like Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon Of Kentucky,” the traditional “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “This Train,” and “All The Good Times,” written by Lead Belly and Alan Lomax.

Mountain City Four is produced by original member Peter Weldon and Jane McGarrigle. The packaging contains photos and liner notes from Weldon, both Jane and Anna McGarrigle, and Joe Boyd, outlining the history and sharing memories of the Mountain City Four. Not only is Mountain City Four a window into the origin of one of the world’s foremost singer/songwriting sisters, but a look into the incredible folk music scene of the 1960s.

CD / DIGITAL TRACK LIST:
JESULEIN SÜSS/WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN
MEAN OLD FRISCO
EREV SHEL SHOSHANIM
MOTHERLESS CHILDREN
DARK AS A DUNGEON
BLUE MOON OF KENTUCKY
REUBEN RANZO
YOU’VE GOT TO WALK THAT LONESOME VALLEY
EN FILANT MA QUENOUILLE
THIS TRAIN
THE LOG DRIVER’S WALTZ
V’LÀ LE BONNE VENT
YOU’RE GONNA NEED SOMEBODY ON YOUR BOND
ALL THE GOOD TIMES
SAM HALL
SHENANDOAH

Cat: OV-501

CD, MP3---more info: http://omnivorerecordings.com/shop/mountain-city-four/

I usually have to get used to the Sisters' definitively 60s-based folkie vocal precision (a bit dainty sometimes, no matter how expressive) all over again after not listening for a while, but the MC4 have an arrestingly rich harmonic blend right off---maybe it helps that this set is mostly live---and the effect continues when the McG.s are way up front, confidently reaching out to the audience, though never oversinging---well, "This Train" does sound like something from A Mighty Wind, but that's "This Train," unless maybe Woody G. sang lead: he couldn't chirp if his life depended on it, and wouldn't anyway---also, "Dark as a Dungeon" zips by like most others, too fast to register in this case, but otherwise they do slow down when appropriate, which is not too often. Really good range of material, too.