NEWS: Martha Wainwright @ Wylam Brewery

Image by Gaëlle Leroyer

Martha Wainwright’s debut album opened with nothing more than a frail vocal lamenting over a lost romance. It was tender, it was raw and it was the birth of Wainwright’s musical takeover.

The Canadian folk singer comes from a family filled with revered and acclaimed musical icons – including polymath brother Rufus Wainwright, father and songwriting icon Loudon Wainwright III and mother and acclaimed folk artist Kate McGarrigle – yet she has forged her own voice, as testament to her own talent. 

Over the years, Wainwright’s music has demonstrated a vulnerability and pain which is often cloaked in unassuming vignettes. Her recent release is two-fold – encompassing a memoir, Stories I Might Regret Telling You, and her latest album Love Will Be Reborn. The highly anticipated memoir documents a litany of brutally self-effacing and honest accounts of the tribulations, pressures and emotions she has experienced growing up in a vocal and talented household.  Rammed full of candid tales, it was a striking contrast to the more guarded output of her musical career, and the accompanying album contains songs discussed in the publication, mirroring the honesty and heart which sets the memoir apart. 

Her forthcoming show at Wylam Brewery on Sunday 7^th August will no doubt see performances of recent tracks and old favourites. Always a mesmerising performer, it’ll be a truly special show made more so by supporting artist Roseanne Reid – herself no stranger to a famous family, as her father is The Proclaimers’ Craig Reid – and whose folky roots style is as beguiling as Martha’s is heartbreaking.

Martha Wainwright and Roseanne Reid play Wylam Brewery, Newcastle on Sunday 7^th August.