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Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is an American-Canadian singer, songwriter, and composer.
He has recorded nine albums of original music and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set Shakespeare's sonnets to music for a theater piece by Robert Wilson. He is the son of musician and actor Loudon Wainwright III.
Wainwright's self-titled debut album was released through DreamWorks Records in May 1998. His second album, Poses, was released in June 2001. Wainwright's third and fourth studio albums, Want One (2003) and Want Two (2004), were repackaged as the double album Want in 2005.
In 2007, Wainwright released his fifth studio album Release the Stars and his first live album Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. His second live album Milwaukee at Last!!! was released in 2009, followed by the studio albums All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (2010) and Out of the Game (2012).
The double album Prima Donna (2015), was a recording of his opera of the same name. His ninth studio album Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets (2016), featured nine adaptions of Shakespeare's sonnets. Rufus' 10th studio album, Unfollow the Rules, was released on July 20, 2020.
Wainwright is the son of musicians Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and the older brother of singer Martha Wainwright.
Wainwright was born in Rhinebeck, New York, to folk singers Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III. His parents divorced when he was three, and he lived with his mother in Montreal for most of his youth. His father is a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the 17th century Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, later New York. Wainwright has dual US and Canadian citizenship.
He attended high school at the Millbrook School in New York, and later briefly studied piano at McGill in Montreal. He began playing the piano at age six, and started touring at age 13 with The McGarrigle Sisters and Family, a folk group featuring Rufus, his sister Martha, his mother Kate, and aunt Anna.
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His song I'm a-Runnin', which he performed in the film Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller at the age of 14, earned him a nomination for a 1989 Genie Award for Best Original Song. He was nominated for a 1990 Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year.
Through weekly shows at Cafe Sarajevo, Wainwright was on the Montreal club circuit and eventually cut a series of demo tapes produced by Pierre Marchand, who later produced Wainwright's album Poses. The resulting tapes impressed his father Loudon, who passed them on to his friend Van Dyke Parks. Parks sent the recordings to Lenny Waronker, the DreamWorks executive who eventually signed Wainwright to his label.
Wainwright lived in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City for six months, during which he wrote most of his second album.
On June 5, 2001, Wainwright's second album, Poses, was released to critical acclaim but limited sales.
In 2003, Rufus released the full-length album Want One. Then Wainwright's album Want Two, from which four songs were released as the EP Waiting for a Want, was released by DreamWorks/Geffen on November 16, 2004.
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Wainwright's fifth studio album, Release the Stars, was released by Geffen on May 15, 2007. The album was produced by Wainwright and featured Richard Thompson, friend Teddy Thompson, sister Martha Wainwright, mother Kate McGarrigle, Neil Tennant, Joan Wasser, Julianna Raye, Larry Mullins, and actress Siân Phillips.
In November 2009, Wainwright announced that he had finished recording his sixth studio album, and was calling it All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu.
In December 2009, Wainwright appeared with sister Martha Wainwright and mother Kate McGarrigle at the Royal Albert Hall in London, raising $55,000 for the Kate McGarrigle Fund, which was established in 2008 to raise awareness of sarcoma, a rare cancer that affects connective tissue such as bone, muscle, nerves, and cartilage.
In July 2011 a 19-disc box set called House of Rufus containing all his studio and live recordings as well as previously unreleased material was released.
In 2015, Wainwright launched a new version of his first opera, accompanied by a film directed by Francesco Vezzoli, featuring Cindy Sherman as the Prima Donna.
Almost a year after releasing stand-alone single Sword of Damocles in October 2018, Rufus signed a record deal with music publisher and record label BMG Rights Management for a new album.
In February 2020, the album, Unfollow the Rules, was announced alongside the release of Joni Mitchell inspired single Damsel in Distress and was slated for an April release.
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Life is a game and true love is a trophy.
Rufus Wainwright
