Loudon Snowden Wainwright III (born September 5, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actor. He has released twenty-six studio albums, four live albums, and six compilations. Some of his best-known songs include "The Swimming Song", "Motel Blues", "The Man Who Couldn't Cry", "Dead Skunk", and "Lullaby". In 2007, he collaborated with musician Joe Henry to create the soundtrack for Judd Apatow's film Knocked Up. In addition to music, he has acted in small roles in at least eighteen television programs and feature films, including three episodes in the third season of the series M*A*S*H.
Reflecting upon his career in 1999, he stated, "You could characterize the catalog as somewhat checkered, although I prefer to think of it as a tapestry." He is the brother of singer Sloan Wainwright and has four children, including musicians Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy Wainwright Roche. He has been married and divorced twice, including to folk singer Kate McGarrigle.
Wainwright was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the son of Martha Taylor, a yoga teacher, and Loudon Wainwright Jr., a columnist and editor for Life magazine. His great-great-grandfather was the politician and diplomat A. Loudon Snowden. He is a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the director-general of New Netherland.
Wainwright's father was not a professional musician, but he played the piano and wrote some songs, exposing his children to musicians such as Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg, whom Wainwright later cited as influences. Wainwright grew up in Bedford, New York, in Westchester County. Among his sisters is Sloan Wainwright, also a singer. Like his father, he attended St. Andrew's School near Middletown, Delaware.
Wainwright began writing songs in 1968, while living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His first song, "Edgar", was about a lobster fisherman he had met while working in a boatyard on Rhode Island. He had previously studied acting at Carnegie Mellon University, before leaving to participate in the Summer of Love in San Francisco. After writing his first songs, he performed in small rooms and folk clubs in Cambridge, Boston, and New York City. He was soon noticed and obtained a recording contract. Wainwright signed with Atlantic Records in 1969, and the label released his self-titled debut album in 1970.
Wainwright is perhaps best known for the 1972 novelty song "Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)" and for playing Captain Calvin Spalding (the "singing surgeon") on the American television show M*A*S*H. His appearances spanned three episodes in the show's third season (1974–1975).
Using a witty, self-mocking style, Wainwright has recorded over twenty albums on eleven different labels. Three of his albums have been nominated for Grammy Awards: I'm Alright (1985), More Love Songs (1986), and High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project (2009), for which he won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album in January 2010.
Wainwright has also appeared in a number of films, including small parts in The Aviator (with two of his children), Big Fish, Elizabethtown, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, 28 Days, and Knocked Up, and the television series Undeclared and Parks and Recreation. In the UK, he recorded sessions for John Peel from 1971 onwards and appeared on a simultaneous broadcast on BBC TV and on Radio 1 in February 1978 (known as Sight and Sound in Concert). However, it was in the late 1980s that he gained much wider popularity in Britain, when he appeared as the resident singer with comedian Jasper Carrott on his show Carrott Confidential.
He appeared as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in the first season's fifth episode, which was hosted by Robert Klein and broadcast on November 15, 1975. He performed "Bicentennial" and "Unrequited to the Nth Degree".
Wainwright has said that, like many of his contemporaries, he was inspired musically by seeing Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963. He was one of many young folk singers tagged as the "new Dylan" in the early 1970s, a fact that he later ruefully satirized in his song "Talking New Bob Dylan" from the album History (1992).
Wainwright was a judge for the fourth annual AIM Independent Music Awards.
Following the death of his mother in 1997, Wainwright went through a period of severe depression and stopped writing music. He returned to the family home in Katonah, New York, where he remained for about 18 months. He later said that therapy and medication helped him recover, after which he began writing songs again. The songs he wrote following his mother's death became the basis for his album Last Man on Earth, which was released by Red House Records in 2001.
Wainwright and musician Joe Henry composed the music for the 2007 Judd Apatow film Knocked Up. In addition to composing the soundtrack, Wainwright appeared in the film in a supporting role as the protagonists' obstetrician. He has also composed music for the new theatre production of Carl Hiaasen's Lucky You, which premiered at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
In 2017, Wainwright released his autobiography, Liner Notes: On Parents & Children, Exes & Excess, Death & Decay, and a Few of My Other Favorite Things.
Wainwright's first marriage, to singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle, ended in divorce. During their marriage, they had two children: Rufus and Martha, both of whom are musicians.
Wainwright later had a relationship with singer Suzzy Roche, during which they had a daughter, Lucy Wainwright Roche, who is also a musician. The relationship ended, although Wainwright and Suzzy Roche remain on good terms and occasionally appear onstage together, sometimes with Lucy.
Wainwright's second marriage was to Ritamarie Kelly, and the couple lived in Los Angeles. This marriage also ended in divorce. They have a daughter, Alexandra (Lexie) Kelly Wainwright (born 1993).
Since 2015, Wainwright has lived with Susan Morrison, an editor at The New Yorker.