RIP: Kate McGarrigle Dead At 63

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Canadian folk singer and songwriter Kate McGarrigle, best known for performing with her sister Anna, has died of cancer. She was 63. McGarrigle’s brother-in-law, Dane Lanken, said the singer died at her Montreal home Monday night surrounded by her sisters, Jane and Anna, and her children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, also singers. He said McGarrigle had been battling cancer since the summer of 2006. He said the cancer started in her small intestine and spread to her liver. Kate and Anna, known as the McGarrigle Sisters, began their careers performing at Montreal coffeehouses in the 1960s with a group called the Mountain City Four. They got their break in the 1970s, when their songs were covered by numerous artists, including Linda Ronstadt, who used “Heart Like a Wheel” as the title song to one of her albums. MORE

NEW YORK TIMES: The McGarrigle Sisters were praised by critics for the warmth of their harmonies and for their approach to folk music, which was neither academic nor commercial. Born in Montreal and raised in St.-Saveur-des-Monts, a village about 50 miles to the north, the sisters learned music from nuns and from their family’s regular singalongs at home, which drew from wide sources in folk and traditional pop. The eldest McGarrigle sister, Jane, was a church organist. Kate McGarrigle, who was once married to the singer Loudon Wainwright III, and her survivors include her sisters and two children who have become well-known singers, Rufus and Martha. MORE

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