8 Loudon Wainwright III

High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project

2ND STORY SOUND 2009, FROM £4.88 You Say: “The Charlie Poole Project is a must.” David Howarth, MOJO Facebook A 30-song tribute to the harddrinking, hard-living North Carolina country singer and banjo-picker works, as Loudon puts it, as a “sonic bio-pic”, with Poole’s weird old America originals interspersed with Trad Arr. covers and new biographical songs that recount the strange, sad details of Poole’s life. The arrangements are warm and rough, and Wainwright’s eye for unflinching detail is as sharp as ever, but the real delight is hearing Loudon singing with his children (Martha, Rufus and Lucy) about someone other than himself, someone, by contrast, he cares about and reveres.