Loudon Wainwright, III

Folk singer, songwriter, and humorist Loudon Wainwright III is the son of Loudon Wainwright, Jr., columnist and editor of Life magazine. Wainwright claimed musical inspiration from seeing Bob Dylan performing at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival and he was working the folk clubs of New York and Boston when he was spotted and given a recording contract. Photographed on September 22, 1971, the twenty-four year old Wainwright had already released the first two of more than twenty albums, but national fame for his novelty song “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road” would not occur until the following year. He is the father of musicians Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy Wainwright Roche.