In them earlier days (2007) I had the pleasure to see Kate performing with Rufus and Martha at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival in Michigan.
She told us that Rufus was conceived in Ann Arbor, and the 3 of them performed "Talk To Me Of Mendocino" which I believe she said was written in Ann Arbor.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hiUuRpUqs4&feature=related[/youtube]
This is an excerpt from my review of the concert:
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The headliner of the evening, and the only reason I drove 100 miles, was Rufus Wainwright. I saw him once before at the Elton John Philadelphia Freedom concert. I wasn't very impressed with his performance there. He seemed a little nervous, maybe because the crowd of over 800,000 was overwhelming. He was much more relaxed tonight.
I can't remember what his first song was, but then he introduced the second song. He said "This is the song I wrote for Brokeback Mountain."
He started playing and someone in the audience must have said something because he started laughing. It was okay though. He played a few more intro bars and started singing. Of course I had goose bumps already on the first few notes. He gets to the second verse and he sang the wrong words!! I wasn't the only one who noticed. Rufus looked a little shocked, and then someone in the audience shouted out the first line of that verse. Rufus just looked straight ahead, added an extra measure, and continued the song with the right words. The rest of the song was perfect, and had quite a bit more power and soul than what we hear in the movie. But I felt alone in the auditorium until near the end of the song when I could hear other people in the audience humming. That felt good.
After he finished the song, I noticed 2 gay couples leaving. One of the guys had a cowboy hat. I'm sure they only went to the concert to hear that one song.
He sang a couple of songs with Martha, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was his mother, Kate McGarrigle. He introduced her and she came out and told a story about how she discovered she was pregnant with Rufus when she was in Ann Arbor 34 years ago. She played the piano while Rufus sang a song that she wrote. It was nice but again I can't remember the name.
Rufus, Martha, and Kate sang one song together. The song was Talk To me Of Mendocino, written by Kate in 1975. This was the highlight of the evening for most of the audience, and would have been for me too if he hadn't sung Maker Makes.