I discovered Rufus at the Movies

Sunday night we went to see Rufus Wainwright at Benaroya Hall, where last week we had watched Psycho (see below) accompanied by the Seattle Symphony. Benaroya Hall may be the best Hall for listening to music in all of Seattle, with crystalline acoustics, no echo and perfect sight lines. We have been big fans of Rufus for about 4 years....actually I first remembered hearing him on movie soundtracks The Last Kiss (NSH but featured the Scrubs lead Zach Braff), The History Boys and most memorably Brokeback Mountain. (He also performed on Meet the Robinsons and Aviator.) Then my wife bought a new Christmas CD which we splurge on every year called The McGarrigle Christmas Hour which features Kate and Anna McGarrigle, a Canadian sister duo popular in the 1970's for their combination of folk, country, pop and ethereal sound. A young man's thin baritone voice kept intriguing me. I felt like he was going to have an emotional break at any moment, yet he was perfectly in key, and captured the spiritual content of each song he was featured in very nicely. I learned that Rufus was the son of Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright, since divorced, and along with sister Martha, the CD was a musical family affair.
We loved Want One and quickly purchased Want Two, and two earlier CD's. His most recent CD of original work is the splendid Release the Stars. He's got a wonderful sense of the twisted harmonic hook--the more you listen the more you discover, and it seems I never get tired of listening. We've seen him live at the Triple Door, The Moore and now Benaroya Hall, which was his best sounding yet, for he appeared only with a guitar and a piano, which he rotated on through out the 90 minute set. He sang some familiar stuff, but what really excited me were some new songs from a new forthcoming CD with just him and piano, and an aria from his recently performed opera (in German!), and some Shakespearean sonnets(!) that he has set to music. He seems to me to be a pop genius of some sort, whether he's channeling Judy Garland with her dramatic style, singing ethnic folk songs, belting out pop tunes with full band/orchestra or just singing a simple, tuneful Christmas melody. I'd love to see him write a score for a Broadway or movie musical.