Kate McGarrigle

Kate McGarrigle (born February 6, 1946, Montréal, Quebec, Canada - died January 18, 2010, Montréal, Quebec, Canada) was a Canadian folk musician and singer-songwriter. Her music is a mix of Gallic style, from her roots in French-Canadian folk music, and bluegrass and country. She was a multi-instrumentalist who played guitarr, banjo, violin, piano and Accordion among other instruments.

In the 1960s Kate was first part of the Mountain City Four (MC4), a group that played the Montreal folk scene, before moving to the US and touring the North-East on the folk club circuit in a duo with [a50076]. She married American folk singer [a289620] in the early 1970's. Around the same time, she began circulating tapes around Greenwich Village, of herself and older sister [url=https://www.discogs.com/artist/440846-Anna-McGarrigle]Anna[/url] performing. This attracted songwriting credits for names such as [a262943] and [a249836], raising the profile of the sisters and finally garnering them a recording deal with [l41321]. The sisters went on to have much success in the mid 1970's as the duo [a274532]. After putting their careers on hold for most of the 1980's to raise their children, they then made a successful comeback in the 1990s. She was made a Member of the Order Of Canada in 1994 and received the Governor's General Award in 2004.

In 2006, she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called clear-cell sarcoma. Two years later she set up The Kate McGarrigle Fund (in the US known as the [l=Kate McGarrigle Foundation]), a charity that would help support research about the rare cancer. It raises money through donations from concerts by her friends and relatives, as well as a few related live album releases. She is the mother of [a=Martha Wainwright] and [a=Rufus Wainwright] from her marriage to Loudon Wainwright III.