Wainwright’s Wry Ballads Pack Punch

It would have been easy for Loudon Wainwright III to get too cozy with the affectionate audience that came to see him on Sunday at the highly intimate Largo, thus leaving the casual listener feeling left out.

But in the first of his two nights at the Fairfax district club, the veteran singer-songwriter satisfied newcomers and devotees alike, bantering with fans and granting their requests for older tunes during his 90-minute set while showcasing his 16th and latest album, “Little Ship.”

Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, the 51-year-old performer applied his patented deadpan, absurd, usually self-deprecating sense of humor to everything from genetic engineering to privileged childhoods to rock-band reunions. Yet, particularly with the new songs, Wainwright zinged listeners with emotion as potently as with comic barbs, striking at both the heart and the funny bone while never once trading in cheap sentiment.

Few songwriters can both mourn and poke fun at a busted relationship as effectively as Wainwright does in “OGM,” an ode to futile and frightening encounters with a now-estranged answering machine. And Wainwright proved adept at illuminating the many facets of family life--from being a dad to being a son--with a tragicomic grace that made you both laugh with him and feel just a little wistful.