If you think it's hard for rock 'n' roll dinosaurs from the 1970s to grow old gracefully, try keeping up appearances when your kids upstage you.
Take Kate and Anna McGarrigle for example, the two singing sisters from St-Sauveur, Que., who were pioneers in Canada's first generation of alt-country a generation before the Cash Brothers and Kathleen Edwards.
Since then, Kate's watched the talented children she had with American folksinger Loudon Wainwright, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, rocket to the mainstream success that's just eluded The McGarrigles.
"I'm incredibly proud of my kids," says Kate from her home in Montreal. "They really have their father's drive. Loudon will try anything and give it his best, and if it doesn't work out, that's life. The worst thing you can do is imitate anybody, 'cause if you fail, you have nothing. Being yourself is virtuous, and I'm very into virtue these days."
As if anyone could accuse the Irish/French-Canadian-rooted McGarrigles of being anything but original.
The bilingual pair are on tour with their eighth album, La Vache qui pleure, and arrive at Centrepointe Theatre Monday.
It's the first French recording they've done in 20 years. La Vache qui pleure is a brooding, melancholic collection of personal songs.
It's the kind of disc that seemingly immortal musicians seem to generate after they recognize that they aren't young and beautiful anymore.
"I wish we had tried harder to make a mark in the music business," says Kate.
"It would have been nice to have been immortalized."
But when I ask her if she feels like she and Anna missed the boat with their musical career, she claims that People-level celebrity is about the last thing she's wanted.
"My brush with celebrity came at the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party," recalls Kate. "The only reason I got the invitation was as Rufus' date and even then, they didn't want me because I wasn't a young starlet. They didn't want to see someone's mom there. In the end, it was boring. Everyone was pushing their career and egos."
With the release of their first album The McGarrigles, they became Canadian folk music's eccentrics.
By 1975, British folk-rock was in full swing. Joe Boyd, who had produced Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention, produced The McGarrigles. That record went on to be named Melody Maker's album of the year and was a runner-up on the New York Times' best-of list.
"Anna and I have a natural musical curiosity that prevents us from becoming ambitious," she explains stoutly. "We're purposely amateurish, absolutely."
Since then, the McGarrigles have been raising families as single moms and occasionally, recording award-winning albums such as Dancer With Bruised Feet in 1978, 1980's The French Record, Hearts Accelerating in 1990, and The McGarrigle Hour in 1998.
"The tragedy of the business is that it eats people alive," Kate says.
While the two sisters have lived a relatively normal existence, Kate's seen her son Rufus, who's one of the most promising talents on the scene today, struggle with drug and alcohol addictions. "The tragedy of Michael Jackson is that you start as a young black boy and end up a white middle-aged woman. It can be evil."
The McGarrigles, with singing siblings Rufus and Martha, are redoing Hal Wilner's tribute to Leonard Cohen this May in the U.K., with dates in London, Glasgow and Dublin.
Tickets for the McGarrigles' Centrepointe show are $32 and available at the box-office. Call 580-2700.
