Saturday afternoon at WOMAD festival. The sun makes everything feel hot and languid, even amongst the commotion of the festival.

Martha Wainwright’s voice is just as languid, and her answers slow and considered in a way that makes each word seem weightier.

Her life motto is an ambiguous one, yet totally Martha.

‘Be there… and then leave’.

Wainwright is certainly a name synonymous with great music lineage. Whilst Martha’s songs have sometimes suggested a rocky relationship with her father Loudon Wainwright, she is unwavering in her love and admiration for her mother, the folk singer Kate McGarrigle.

It’s Kate who she cites as her ultimate ‘hero’. Martha says that she’s recently been totally ‘intimidated’ by her mother’s music, and that she’s undergoing a ‘total rediscovery of her and her music’.

Martha says that she’s currently ‘thoroughly motivated and inspired by her talent’. She’s certainly doing a sterling job at continuing the family legacy.

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