RICHARD (and LINDA) THOMPSON

“Imagine encountering, here in the Eighties, someone who had never heard of Jimi Hendrix, who had never been moved by the great singers and session groups of golden-age Motown, or who, by whatever unimaginable means, had managed to remain incognizant of the collected musical masterworks of Lennon and McCartney.  Every guitar player should own this album, if only to hear Richard's skirling Stratocaster intro to "Calvary Cross," and his compact, utterly unpredictable solos on such songs as "When I Get to the Border." Singers will be wonder-struck by Linda's stunning readings of "Withered and Died" and the sublime "Down Where the Drunkards Roll," not to mention the rollicking title track, a pure-pop pinnacle for the pair. And enemies of sentiment can savor Richard's hard-nosed lyrical stance, most striking on "The End of the Rainbow," a chilling lullaby in which he advises the dozing infant: "There's nothing at the end of the rainbow/There's nothing to grow up for anymore."  

So wrote Kurt Loder in an evocative 1984 Rolling Stone review of indie label Carthage’s re-ish of Richard and Linda Thompson’s 70’s back catalog.  If that isn’t the sort of thing that makes ya’ll want to scurry off to the nearest CD store, cash in hand, then friend, you’re probably reading the wrong blog.

RT isn’t all that ob-scure today.  He’s a critics darling and celebrated cult artist, and not only is his back catalog readily available, so is a host of live recordings, outtakes, videos, boxed-sets et al.  Once “scandalously unavailable” (thanks Sr. Christgau), Thompson is highly visible and eminently approachable, if you’ve the inclination.

You should, because Loder is right.  Any guitar-head who loves, say, Marquee Moon is going to collapse into a state of orgasmic ecstasy upon entering Thompson-land. Think a mega-dose of Bert Jansch/Davey Graham-esque DAGDAD Celtic/mid-eastern drone, pumped up with equal parts Scotty Moore/James Burton pure rock`n’roll drive.   If songwriting’s your bag, Thompson’s writing is always literate, witty, sometimes very funny, and other times deals in blasted truths so harsh and unflinching that even Lou Reed would likely wince.

RT’s story begins with legendary British folk-rockers Fairport Convention – a story in itself, but which I’ll condense mightily here.  Fairport essentially kicked off as an Anglo Jefferson Airplane, right down to configuration (dual lead singers, male and female) and material (mostly folkie stuff, covers of notable songsmiths including Dylan, a few similarly-minded originals) and a weird sensa humor.  And, like the Airplane, the band found definition when they ousted original female singer Judy Dyble for Sandy Denny, equivalent to Grace Slick in rep, vocal prowess , charisma and songwriting ability.  Thompson sat in Jorma’s seat.  But as early as their second outing, 19769’s What We Did On Our Holidays, he was also showing himself as a songwriter of real intelligence and originality.  “Take the sun from my heart/Let me learn to despise” crooned the chorus at the opening of “Tale in Hard Time”.  But it was Thompson’s “Meet On the Ledge”, an aching, heartbreaking meditation on love, friendship, loss, mortality and the afterlife that dropped the bomb.  There’d simply never been anything quite like it.  “Ledge” remains Fairport’s signature song, long after Thompson’s departure from the band a little over two years after waxing it.

By the time of that departure, Thompson had lived up to his promise as a writer and was honing his guitar attack to a razors edge – you can hear him duke it out with violinist Dave Swarbrick on House Full: Live at the Troubdour and various bootlegs.  In `72 he cut the bizarre, ultra-eclectic Henry the Human Fly, a collection of originals that spanned various forms of Celtic folk, art song, and pure if peculiarly British rock`n’roll.  Henry picked up the occasional favorable review and influenced those few weirdos (David Thomas of Pere Ubu was/is a major fan) who managed to get their hands on it while going down as the worst-selling album in the label’s history.  Thompson kept it together by doing sessions and marrying Linda Peters.  As Richard and Linda Thompson, they started build a formidable rep on the folk circuit - "Thompson could stun from 50 paces with a frenzy of unfeasibly nimble fretwork, while Linda - was capable of sending a sliver of ice into your heart."

Being a big deal on the British folk circuit made them big-ish fish in a small-ish pond.  But their three album for Island  I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Honkey Pokey (both `74) and Pour Down Like Silver (`75) got them attention beyond the green and pleasant shores.  " Most folk-rock succeeds only in accentuating the irretrievability of the past, but the Thompsons' hard-nosed Sufi fatalism delivers them from nostalgia. When they sing about getting "to the border," they're talking about dying, not smuggling weed from Mexico, and they make the crossing sound like an earthly triumph ("drowned in a barrel of wine" indeed). Because they believe in eternity, the Thompsons don't sentimentalize about time gone--they simply encompass it in an endless present – wrote Christgau of Bright Lights.  Hokey Pokey was an enjoyable transition, but it was the last that was their first  masterpiece, a dazzling collection of devotional songs that could pass for love songs even if you looked close.  The combination of shimmering guitar work, fearless songs of longing and desire (for eternity, love, transcendence, all of the above and more) and their one-two punch vocal team-up made for the best rock`n’roll to come out of the UK until Johnny Rotten grabbed a mike (which happened, I might add, at the very same time this gem was recorded and released).

None of this translated into big record sales or fame, though.  And the Thompsons, having converted to Sufism, chose to leave the material world behind for a time, dropping out to live in a Sufi commune, where Richard would only make music for and with the faithful.
Fortunately for us fans, it didn’t last.  After a few years without such real-world illusions as electricity and running water, Linda decided it was time to return to the secular world, dragging her perhaps reluctant hubby with her.  Their re-entry was tentative at first – First Light and Sunnyvista are the two weakest offings in the Thompson oeuvre.  This is not, however, to say they’re actually bad – both contain some fine moments and Sunnyvista’s best tracks rock.  The real bomb was yet to drop, though.

Having now flopped for three labels, the Thompsons weren’t exactly seen as a hot prospect.  Even hit producer Gerry Rafferty couldn’t find a taker for their latest recording – an album Richard intensely disliked.  When that chance died, the Thompson’s signed with producer Joe Boyd’s tiny new Hannibal label and quickly recorded a new album, mostly made up of songs from the unreleased Rafferty album.

Shoot Out the Lights changed everything.  First, it sold -  better than anything they’d ever done, probably a result of the second factor, which is that it was widely and ecstatically reviewed even in such places as Rolling Stone and The Village Voice.  It made pretty much everyone’s best-of-the-year list for 1982.  And it deserved to.  Lights was a collection of powerfully compelling songs, driven by the usual suspects (hot guitar, superb, mature songwriting and potent singing), but here turned up to eleven.  The teaming of Linda’s chilling vocals and Richard’s shards-of-broken-glass guitar on “Walking On A Wire”, the deceptively calm meditation of “Just the Motion”, the driving rock of “Don’t Renege On Our Love” and the joyous doom-laden “Wall Of Death” and the guitar flip-out of the title track … this was Richard and Linda firing on all cylinders.  They’d always been a treasure – now they were undeniable.  

And they were also over.  The success of the album all but forced them into their first US tour, a now-legendary affair in which the Thompsons icily faced away from each other while harmonizing on the songs of broken love and betrayal that filled Lights – that is when they weren’t actively sniping at each other.  The onstage dissolution of their marriage might have been spectacle – odd for RT, a devoutly religious, introverted, achingly shy, teetotaling, non-leather-wearing vegetarian – hardly the stuff of bad-ass rockin’ and rollin’ – but the music, captured on bootlegs, was often extraordinary as the Thompsons, abetted by old mates Pete Zorn and ex-Fairporteers Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks, stormed through songs from Lights, highlights from their rich back catalog, the occasional Fairport chestnut, and stompin’ rock`n’roll encores courtesy of the Everly Bros., Jerry Lee Lewis and Conway Twitty (“Danny Boy”!).

The whole thing left Richard, now a cause celebre, as a hot property even if he was hardly Top 40.  Next year’s Hand Of Kindness, sans Linda, was a rollicking collection of Cajun-style r`n’r stomps filtered through the usual Celtic sensibility.  It too made numerous year-end best-ofs, and landed him a new signature tune, the romping “Tear-Stained Letter”.  That and another US tour finally put him on the map and now, 11 years after bailing on Fairport, Thompson was officially a cult artist of no little renown, covered and praised in all the music rags.  By `85 he was signed to a major again.

Kurt Loder would write of RT’s next release, Across A Crowded Room, “by any standard other than his own it's a very fine record, replete with rollicking rhythms, master-class guitar excursions and piercing lyrical apercus. However, longtime Thompson listeners may find that, compared to much of his past work — particularly the six superb studio albums he recorded with his ex-wife, singer Linda Thompson — Across a Crowded Room is faintly disappointing. Such are the burdens of inveterate brilliance.  Those unfamiliar with Thompson's work are invited to dismiss all of the above as purist nit-picking. Across a Crowded Room remains a compendium of expertly constructed songs, played and sung with real heart and recorded with an exciting, live-in-the-studio crackle. Rare is the artist from whom such excellence can come to seem a letdown.”  

Which, in a nutshell, sums up RT ever since.  He tours regularly and reliably puts out an album every 2-4 years, for the majors until 1999 and a series of indies since.  He’s put out 13 studio albums since 1983 and all of them are good to very good, each of them contains at least 2-3 very memorable songs and usually at least one real treasure or near-treasure.  Some are stronger than others.  He’s also released a plethora of live recordings, one three-disk set, tow boxed sets (one a career retrospective, the other entirely made up of outtakes), and several DVD’s.  He regularly turns up on tribute albums and specials (and has been the subject of several himself).  He’s generally regarded as a musician’s musician.  He’s never bad, though at worst he can be a little dull and predictable, falling back on musical and lyrical tropes he now handles effortlessly.   He rarely hits it out of the park, but he can still hit a homer.  Thompson’s assembled a catalog of good-to-great albums, and that’s no small thing.  

Richard Thompson
Allmusic
Wiki

Essential Listening

The cream of the RT crop, album-wise, are Shoot Out the Lights, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Pour Down Like Silver and Hand of Kindness.  Lights is the most potent, Bright Lights the most "Celtic", Hand the most rockin' and Silver, though less immediately accessible than its brethren, is the most rewarding over time.  The weird but charming Henry the Human Fly comes on the heels of those.

The rest of the Linda-era albums are spottier.  Hokey Pokey, which arrived `tween Bright Lights and Silver, is half an album as good as its brothers and half throwaways.  The good stuff includes "The Egypt Room", "I'll Regret It All In The Morning" and the title track, a paean to ice cream or oral sex - take your pick.  First Light is the least interesting Thompson album to these ears - sub-standard songs, rather lifelessly performed and too-slickly produced.  Sunnyvista is tougher and rocks pretty hard, but again, is half a good album and half filler.  "Borrowed Time" is one of RT's best rockers and the rollicking cajun hoedown "Saturday Rolling Around" are the standouts.

Post-Linda and post-Hand of Kindness, the highlights are Across A Crowded Room which, despite inspiring Kurt Loder's hesitant praise, is consistent and has held up well.  The eerie "Ghosts in the Wind", "When the Spell is Broken" and the very strange "Love In A Faithless Country" are essential RT listening.  Daring Adventures, the follow-up, is nearly as good; the celt-o-billy "Valerie" is another great rocker, and closer "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" is one of Thompson's finest hours.

After that complacency sets in.  All of Thompson's from `89's Amnesia on are worth hearing, all contain some fine tracks, all spotlight his talents and virtues expertly and none really blows me away.  Mock Tudor (1999) tops my list and 2005's Front Parlour Ballads is bottom.  Everything else falls somewhere in between.  If you like Thompson, you'll find things to like on all of them (I do, and I do).  

There are many live Thompson albums now, though once they were a rare beast.  I haven't heard them all but any live Thompson is probably worth hearing (and he's definitely worth seeing perform).  I'm partial to the solo, acoustic Small Town Romance, recorded on Thompson's first solo US tour.  Apparently I'm not the only one.  Though Thompson famously dislikes the album and had it deleted from the catalog, he allowed it to be restored due to popular demand.  A fistful of Linda-era live tracks which originally appeared on the Guitar, Vocal compilation, specifically a  romping cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' "It'll Be Me", a stunning take on Dan Penn's "Dark End Of The Street" and a hypnotic, overpowering "Night Comes In" can now be found as bonus tracks on the Pour Down Like Silver and Hokey Pokey CD's.  

There's also a plethora of compilations.  Most noteworthy is the three-disc Watching the Dark, which mixes a handful of album tracks with some real winners - "Crash the Party", an original rocker used to close out shows in the late 80's, the stunning ballad, "From Galway to Graceland", a driving alt take of "For Shame Of Doing Wrong", and a powerful live take of "When the Spell is Broken", among others, making this a close-to-essential set.  The later, 5-CD RT is all unreleased stuff - live stuff, alt takes and never-before heard.  Its a lot of fun but probably only for the committed Thompson-ite (of couse, I have it...).  Walking On Wire is an attempt at box set career retrospective.  Good stuff, but if you're interested in Thompson, go for the original albums first.  If you become an aficionado, you won't need this set anyway.  On the other hand, the very rare Doom and Gloom From the Tomb Vol. 1, a cassette-only set sent out as a gift to subscribers to Thompson's fan club in the 80's, has some essential finds, including a storming live "Cavalry Cross", a cover of "I'll Keep It With Mine", and demo versions of stuff from First Light that slay the released versions.  Good luck finding but its worth the search.

Thompson's Fairport days are covered on their first five albums, the best of which is 1969's Liege and Lief.  The compilation Chronicles, which replaces the fine two-LP set,  contains most of what's best on the rest, including most of Thompson's best Fairport moments, and the obscure "Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman", which Thompson left off his final Fairport album, Full House (it has now been re-added as a bonus track on the CD).  His most exciting moments with Fairport are captured on the live House Full album, which contains intense performances of much of the best of the later Fairport stuff, and some savage dueling between Thompson's guit and Dave Swarbrick's fiddle.

Essential Reading

Richard Thompson: The Biography by Patrick Humphries covers Thompson life and music up to 1996 quite well.  

Essential Viewing 

There are now several live DVD's.  You can check them out here.  I haven't seen any of them, but live Thompson is almost always worthwhile.  One I have seen, and it's quite worthwhile is Across A Crowded Room - Live in Concert 1985.  I saw that tour and it's a fond memory.  Thompson hasn't fit to issue it on DVD yet, though.