As the son of folk music pioneers Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, Wainwright fell in step with the music business from the beginning. By age 13, he was touring the world over with his mother, sister Martha and aunt Anna as the McGarrigle Sisters & Family. At 14, he snapped up nominations for a Juno (Canadian version of the Grammy) and Genie (equivalent of an Oscar) awards for a song featured in a film.

Wainwright’s 1998 eponymous debut album won him numerous industry accolades, among them Top 10 album of the year honors in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, New Yorker, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. Rolling Stone also named him best new artist for that year.

His second album, Poses, released in 2001, awarded him similar acclaim and saw the artist take an even more honest look at his life with such self-confessional songs as “Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk” and the album’s title track.

Wainwright kept busy last fall with a spot on the nearly sold-out Tori Amos tour, while his own outing earlier in the year fared equally well.