WAINWRIGHT STILL A JESTER WITH A MESSAGE.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

WHEN LOUDON Wainwright III, Mike Seeger, Tom Paxton and John Hammond got together to discuss their Washington Square Memoirs tour, it was agreed that nobody would do encores and that they would sing a song together at the end. But what song?

The tour, which stops at UCLA Royce Hall on Saturday night, was named after the legendary gatherings during the '50s and '60s in the historic Greenwich Village park in New York that spurred the urban folk boom in America. Because of hearing the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and others, thousands of kids, including Wainwright, picked up acoustic guitars and started learning folk tunes, protest songs and even began writing their own. Even after everybody started plugging in, the folk scene continued to have an impact, especially in light of the events of the '60s - assassinations, the civil-rights movement and the Vietnam War.

``Everybody right away said we should do an anti-war song,'' says Wainwright, who at 54 is the youngest of the group. ``So then we ran down the list - 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone?' 'Masters of War.' And I think it was Mike Seeger who suggested 'Down by the Riverside.' Somebody then went to a laptop and printed up the lyrics, and we all learned it.''

The lyrics include the line, ``I'm going to lay down my sword and shield and study war no more.'' As Wainwright says, ``It seemed like the right song to do.''

Although Wainwright has written topical songs during his 30-year-plus career (his first release was in 1970), he's mainly known for his wry, insightful autobiographical tunes. ``Many of my of my songs are about my life! - my personal life, my family, my disastrous romantic life.''

His last album, ``The Last Man on Earth,'' dealt with the death of his mother. ``Serious but not totally unhumorous, I hope,'' the singer-songwriter says. ``Often on my records, I throw in a novelty song or two,'' he says with a laugh, ``but we tried to curb that tendency because we felt that the songs were serious and strong.''

Wainwright will feature a few songs from ``Last Man'' along with possibly a new one he's written. He doesn't much like looking back, although he does get requests for older songs, which he sometimes ignores and other times tries to fulfill, occasionally forgetting the words.

``You get tried of singing songs you wrote 20 years ago. It's not like I have a string of hits. I could perform 'One Toke Over the Line... .' '' When it's pointed out that that's not one of his songs, he says, ``No, but people don't know that.''

That impish sense of humor permeates Wainwright's on-stage presence. (For the record, Wainwright's one hit was ``Dead Skunk'' in 1972, a novelty tune.) Asked if he's a frustrated stand-up comedian, Wainwright says no, ``because I get to do it ... I like to perform and love to make people laugh.'' A beat later: ``And I'm not frustrated.''

But Wainwright didn't start out to be a folk artist. He studied to be an actor, and occasionally takes a thespian gig - like last year on the critically acclaimed ``Undeclared'' on Fox. He's heading off soon to shoot a role in Tim Burton's next film, ``Big Fish.''

In the meantime, he's putting together a live album, which includes guest spots from Richard Thompson and Van Dyke Parks. Also on it will be his daughter, Martha, who is recording an album of her own. His son, Rufus Wainwright, already has recorded three albums of his own.

It all goes along with that ``family thing'' Wainwright is interested in. ``I've written a couple songs about my grandparents - three of the four I didn't even know.''

In the meantime, though, as he's looking to the future, he's also revisiting his roots, in a way, with Washington Square Memoirs. He remembers hitchhiking to the Newport Folk Festival as a kid and then going down to Greenwich Village. And though some of the audience for the tour is graying, he points out that there are also college students.

``I was driving last weekend and listening to a station covering the anti-war march (in San Francisco), and Joan Baez was talking and singing,'' notes Wainwright. ``Somehow, when huge stuff is happening like now, singing and protesting seem natural and appropriate and needed.''

WASHINGTON SQUARE MEMOIRS

Who: Loudon Wainwright III, Mike Seeger, Tom Paxton and John Hammond.

Where: UCLA'S Royce Hall.

When: 8 p.m. Saturday.

Tickets: $35 to $15. Call [phone] or go online at uclalive.com.

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Photo:

no caption (Loudon Wainwright III)