Not that he’s ever been an artist to do things by half, but here, at last, is The Full Rufus. You might think that we’d gone there before with the man who, in his hedonistic New York twenties, took so many drugs that he went temporarily blind. With the solo star whose talent blazed so fiercely early in his career that it needed two companion albums, 2003’s Want One and 2004’s Want Two, one straight after the other, to contain it.

With the Broadway diva who tackled nothing less than the entirety of a legendary 1961 Judy Garland concert in a double album, Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall (2007) followed by a film, Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy!: Live From The London Palladium (even his titles are extra). Who’s written not one but two operas, Prima Donna (2009) and Hadrian (2018). Whose 2011 boxset, House Of Rufus, ran to 19 discs.

No. In terms of capturing, then distilling the essence of Rufus Wainwright, those were just warm-ups. Presenting, then, Folkocracy, his 17th (give or take) album. Released ahead of the Canadian’s 50th birthday, these 15 covers of classics from the many worlds of folk see a musician who grew up amidst folk royalty partnering up with an array of starry pals. As the son of Loudon Wainwright and Katie McGarrigle says with characteristic immodesty (but equally characteristic truth), ‘I’m from a bona fide folkocracy who mixed extensively with other folkocracies such as the Seegers and the Thompsons. I spun off into opera and pop. Now I’m back where it all began. The older I get, the more I appreciate how valuable my folk knowledge is, to have had it ingrained in me as a child.’

Not that Wainwright is taking the easy or obvious road. Yes, there’s a simple, picked, banjo’n’fiddle version of Neil Young’s ‘Harvest’ (with Andrew Bird and Chris Stills), and a pared-back duet with ANOHNI of his own ‘Going To A Town’ (yes, it is a classic, too). But if you ever wondered what Nicole Scherzinger singing traditional Hawaiian ballad ‘Kaulana Na Pua’ would sound like, wonder no more. And if you didn’t think you needed the mighty Chaka Khan singing on a piano-based version of ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’ (not that one), think again.

Equally, if anyone could ever hope to replicate the golden voice and pure 1967 Californian vibes of The Mamas & The Papas on a cover of their beauteous ‘Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon)’, it would only be Wainwright. And only he could call on Stills, Susanna Hoffs and Sheryl Crow to lend a harmonising hand. In lesser hands, Folkocracy would certainly have been ‘My Songbook, At My Half Century, Done By Me-And-My-Famous-Chums’ hubris. But he is Rufus, and he rolls like musical royalty. 

Folkocracy is out now on BMG.