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 Singers/songwriters
Kate and Anna McGarrigle have performed to critical and popular
acclaim throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East
for three decades. Their albums have earned record of the
year awards from Melody Maker, Stereo Review,
and The New York Times, among others. Their songs
have been widely recorded by other artists, including Linda
Ronstadt, Judy Collins, Emmylou Harris, and Nana Mouskouri.
Kate and Anna were born in Montreal of mixed English- and
French-Canadian background, and grew up in the Laurentian
Mountains village of Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts, Québec.
They took piano lessons from the village nuns, and family
singing sessions around the living room piano were a regular
occurrence.
In the 1960s, Kate studied engineering at McGill University,
and Anna painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Montreal.
At the same time, they became stars on the city's folk
music scene, and soon began to compose their own songs. When
some of these songs found their way into the repertoires of
established artists, Kate and Anna were invited to record
their own album, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, for Warner Bros.
The elegance of their vocal harmonies, and the variety and
originality of their music, delighted critics and fans alike,
and the album earned international praise.
Other albums followed, Dancer with Bruised Knees, Pronto Monto,
an all-French record (called "delightful" by Rolling
Stone), Love Over and Over ("triumphant," said
The New York Times), and Heartbeats Accelerating, where the
Times said of Kate's song "I Eat Dinner,"
"Had Emily Dickinson been a late-20th century songwriter,
this might be just the sort of piece she would have written."
The title track, Anna's "Heartbeats Accelerating,"
became a hit for Linda Ronstadt.
Their 1996 album, entitled Matapedia, was released on the
Hannibal/Rykodisc label. The Toronto Star called it "a
quiet gem of an album" and The Globe and Mail said it
was "arguably their best ever." Kate and Anna
followed up with The McGarrigle Hour, which featured family
and friends including Loudon Wainwright, Linda Ronstadt, and
Emmylou Harris, among others. The repertoire ranged from the
rollicking sixties drug anthem "Green Green Rocky Road"
to the high society complaint of Cole Porter's "Allez-vous
en." Both of these CDs garnered glowing reviews internationally.
A year later, Kate and Anna videotaped a concert version of
The McGarrigle Hour at the historic Monument National Theatre
in Montreal; it was subsequently aired in Canada on the Global
Network and in the U.S. on WGBH Boston. In December of 1999,
The McGarrigle Hour was released on DVD by Hannibal/Ryko.
Among their many collaborations, the McGarrigles have performed
and recorded with the Irish group The Chieftains. In 1995,
they recorded with Emmylou Harris on her Daniel Lanois-produced
album Wrecking Ball (with Anna's "Goin'
Back to Harlan" among the album's tracks) and
joined Joan Baez on her live recording Ring Them Bells. Closer
to home, they joined Québec's legendary chansonnier
Gilles Vigneault on the cut "Charlie-Jos" on his
latest CD, C’est ainsi que j’arrive à toi.
Kate and Anna have composed and performed music for several
movie and television productions, including a number by the
National Film Board (NFB) of Canada. They were themselves
the subject of an NFB film, directed by Academy Award nominee
Caroline Leaf. They have been profiled by CBC and CTV television
in Canada, appeared on Saturday Night Live and Late Night
with David Letterman, sung in the Public Broadcasting System
fundraiser Songs of the Civil War, and starred in their own
PBS special, with Linda Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur as guests.
In 1994, Kate and Anna were awarded the Order of Canada.
The McGarrigles have appeared in concerts and festivals in
all parts of Canada and the United States, in England, Ireland,
Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium,
and Switzerland, and in Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.
In the late 1990s/early 2000s, Kate and Anna were invited
by producer Hal Willner to participate in a series of concerts
celebrating the work of Harry Smith, the renown eccentric,
filmmaker, and collector of American folk music. These concerts—in
Los Angeles, London, and New York—assembled an eclectic
variety of artists from the pop music world, such as Brian
Ferry, Nick Cave, Van Dyke Parks, Jarvis Cocker, and Lou Reed.
As a result of this collaboration, Kate and Anna sang background
vocals on Nick Cave's and Geoff Muldaur's subsequent
records.
In 2005, Nonesuch Records released The McGarrigle Christmas
Hour, a collection of traditional and contemporary holiday
songs. The release is a celebration of family and friends;
among the many contributors are Emmylou Harris, Anna's
daughter Lilly Lanken, and Kate's children, Martha and
Rufus Wainwright.
The fourteen tracks on the album comprise a wide variety of
holiday songs—Emmylou Harris sings "O Little Town
of Bethlehem" and Kate and Anna, with their daughters
Martha and Lily, harmonize the traditional French song "Il
Est Né." More modern tracks include Rufus's
original "Spotlight On Christmas," and his version
of "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve,"
and Martha and Lily's rendition of Jackson Brown's
"Rebel Jesus." Kate and Anna, along with many
of the album's guest artists, will perform a special
holiday concert at Carnegie Hall on December 21, 2005.
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