Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Tell My Sister (2011)

Tell My Sister is a three-disc compilation album consisting of songs recorded by Kate & Anna McGarrigle. It was released by Nonesuch Records as a box set on May 3, 2011. The first two discs contain Kate & Anna McGarrigle's first two albums, Kate & Anna McGarrigle and Dancer with Bruised Knees. The third disc comprises demos, including acoustic versions and other previously unreleased tracks.

The McGarrigles' debut and its equally praised 1977 follow-up, Dancer With Bruised Knees, are being reissued in one special edition, newly re-mastered by Boyd and John Wood, to coincide with a two-night tribute to Kate McGarrigle, scheduled for May 12 and 13 at New York City's Town Hall and organized by her family and many now-famous friends. Along with the original material from these two albums, a third disc features a collection of rare acoustic sides, often containing just voice and piano or guitar, including 1971 solo demos from Kate and 1974 duo recordings, made prior to the McGarrigles' signing. Among them are exquisitely unadorned versions of "Heart Like a Wheel" and "Talk to Me of Mendicino," plus a lovely rendition of Kate's "Walking Song," which son Rufus Wainwright has taken to performing as an encore number during his own shows. Despite their vintage provenance, these intimate tracks have a powerful immediacy. One can imagine hearing them on a small stage or in Kate's fabled living room, where so many gathered to sing with her and Anna over the years.

"Their music is still so influential to me," declares Emmylou Harris, one of their closest friends and most ardent fans. "Part of what I like to do in my life is to turn other people who had the misfortune of missing it on to their music."