Kate & Anna McGarrigle Artistfacts

1975-2010
Kate and Anna McGarrigle grew up in Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts, Quebec, in a house where their Irish-French Canadian parents expected the kids to be able to entertain guests on a collection of battered instruments.
The sisters learned piano from local nuns, and the close, hymn-like blend that later became their signature can be traced directly back to Catholic liturgical music. "I never seem to have gotten past it," Anna told Uncut magazine.
There were actually three musical McGarrigle sisters. Jane McGarrigle never shared top billing, but she co-wrote material, performed with the duo, produced their 1982 album Love Over and Over, and managed their career from the mid-'70s into the '90s. In practical terms, she was the quiet third pillar of the operation.
Kate and Anna were part of Montreal's 1960s folk scene in the Mountain City Four, alongside Jack Nissenson and Peter Weldon. They played coffeehouses while Anna studied art and Kate studied engineering.
In the early '70s, before the McGarrigle name was on a record sleeve, Kate McGarrigle toured the northeastern US coffeehouse circuit with Canadian musician Roma Baran. They played rooms such as New York's Gaslight Café, with Kate already slipping songs written back home in Montreal by Anna McGarrigle into the set. Baran would later become known for producing the avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson.
While Kate was on the road, Anna wrote "Heart Like A Wheel" in Montreal and sent it south. The song eventually reached Linda Ronstadt, whose 1974 recording - the title track of her breakthrough album Heart Like a Wheel - brought major attention to the sisters and helped them secure a deal with Warner Bros. Records.
The McGarrigles are also woven into another notable musical family tree. Kate married Loudon Wainwright III; their children, Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright, both became acclaimed artists who frequently perform McGarrigle songs, extending the repertoire into a second generation.
Proudly Québécois, the sisters often wrote and recorded in French. Their 1980 album Entre la jeunesse et la sagesse (released internationally as French Record) consists entirely of French-language songs and strengthened their following among Francophone audiences in Canada and abroad.
Over the years they were recognized as national cultural figures in Canada, becoming Members of the Order of Canada and receiving the Governor General's Performing Arts Award along with a later MOJO Roots Award; formal acknowledgment of careers built more on craft and influence than chart positions.
Anna and Jane co-authored the memoir Mountain City Girls, which chronicles their 1950s Quebec childhood, the Montreal and New York folk scenes, and the backstories behind many of their songs.
Their catalog has been recorded across wildly different genres - from Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris to Nana Mouskouri and the Pet Shop Boys - helping cement their reputation as "songwriters' songwriters."
Kate McGarrigle died of a rare form of cancer in 2010. Rufus Wainwright has written several songs about the loss of his mother, including "Martha" and "Zebulon," while her friend Emmylou Harris paid tribute to her on "Darlin' Kate."

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