Loudon Wainwright III's Years in the Making comprehends 45 years of offbeaten tracks – over two hours of rare and unissued Loudoniana. It's a 2-CD audiobiography, with orphaned album cuts, live recordings, radio appearances, home demos, and more. There's audio snapshots of his early folk efforts, with Kate McGarrigle, George Gerdes, and Steve Goodman, singing traditional songs and covering Woody Guthrie and, of all people, Bob Dylan. There's his 70s and 80s forays into the rock ‘n’ roll world, including Leiber and Stoller's “Smokey Joe's Cafe” and his own “I Wanna Be on MTV.” There are featured appearances by Suzzy Roche, Bill Frisell, Van Dyke Parks, Chaim Tannenbaum, and David Mansfield, as well as by his sister Sloan, and all of his children, Rufus, Martha, Lucy, and Lexie.
The CDs are packaged in an elegant 60-page booklet. The wild creations of the brilliant young New Yorker magazine cartoonist Ed Steed are featured on the front and back covers, everywhere throughout the comprehensive credits text, and even on the discs, themselves. There are dozens of scans of documents, introspective musings, and artifacts from what Loudon calls his “swinging life,” in addition to lovely paintings and drawings by friends and fans. Altogether, Years in the Making presents sides of Loudon you've never heard or seen before, a privileged perspective on his various public and private selves throughout his entire career.