Édipo enquanto dândi: Rufus Wainwright e o nascimento da canção

Son of folk singer-songwriters Loudon Wainwright III and Kate

McCgarrigle, Rufus Wainwright was born in New York on July 22, 1973. Few years

before his birth, Kate had moved from Montreal to New York to perform in the

bustling circuit of New York folk music, fulfilling a trajectory common among folk

singers in the late '60s and early '70s. Extremely competitive artists, the couple’s

relationship was at the same time passionate and stormy, Their marriage lasted only

about three years, during which their two children, Rufus and Martha, were born.

After the end of her marriage Kate returned to Montreal, where the children

would be raised, and where she resumed a duo with her sister Anna, with whom she

who had already recorded two albums. Growing up in an environment of great

creativity and stimulated by Kate, from a very early age Rufus Wainwright became

interested in music. As a child he used to listen and play a lot of music and his

interests were as broad as possible, ranging from classical music and opera to Edith

Piaf and Judy Garland, for example, still going for pop music and radio hits of the

time. About being raised in Montreal Rufus (2005) would later say: “………..”.

This variety of interests and influences may explain, at least in part, the

undeniable melodic and harmonic originality present in the architecture of his songs,

the dramatic bombast of unusual arrangements (expanded by the beauty and extent

of his tenor voice), and the complexity of his artistic persona, opposing a strong

camp theatricality, to a tragic , bitter melancholy, and the lone outsider .

For singer-songwriter Sting , Rufus[ ... ] Is outside of time and is therefore timeless . He could appear in any era of music and still remain a single voice and have special things to say . [ ... ] The lyrics , chord changes , the harmonic structure of the song are very sophisticated for pop music . So this is not pop music . It is something much more refined and comprehensive than that. ( Wainwright , 2005) .Even receiving certain classical musical training , Rufus soon migrate to popular music , recovering and redefining the concept of singer- songwriter , a popular American and English tradition , whose original expression would refer to Renaissance and medieval troubadour song. The term singer- songwriter refers to the artist who writes and sings his own songs , usually taking with just a guitar or piano, also touched by it . Although the notion of singer- songwriter remit in the Celtic and medieval troubadours ( singing songs mutants , of uncertain authorship ) , the American tradition of composers interested above all in lyrical and musical originality in building a personal voice and unmistakable , is a product of the twentieth century.