I’m going to see him in concert tomorrow. I saw him about five years ago when he was on his 1000 Years of Popular Music Tour. He is playing at the same venue as I saw him before. He’s playing two shows on back to back nights. The first night, the show I am attending, is sold out. Apparently, he will play a mix of old and new stuff and his West Coast tour will be made into a new live album.
Even though he is almost twice my age, he has been my favorite artist since I discovered him in the early 2000s. I had heard of him, but not heard him until then. My introduction was Mock Tudor and it was love at first listen. Whether you measure it CDs or mp3s, he dominates my music collection. I talk him up whenever I get a chance because no one has heard of him. I like to use Eric Clapton as a reference point; They both British guitar gods of about the same age. While Clapton has gone softer as he has gotten older, RT started softer and has stayed rocking into his 60s.
We’ve got 29, including a CD of Henry the Human Fly, and a few bootlegs. We got Sweet Talker from Netflix just because he did the soundtrack. And my daughter, who was about 10 at the time, got his autograph at a concert riverside in Philly.
We saw him by accident in Princeton in a double bill with Roger McGuinn, and Richard was so much better it wasn’t even funny. (This was Amnesia time.) We finally saw him with a band last year. He is awesome on CD, but even better live.
There is a biography of him out, which I got for my wife one year. I know of lots of people who’ve never heard of him, but not anyone who has heard him and doesn’t like him.
“Fats Waller said your feets too big,
I say your feets too left.”
Richard Thompson does have some rabid fans; he sort of reminds me of Warren Zevon that way.
I love the stuff he did with Fairport Convention way back in the 70’s, but it’s true he has not gone stagnant.
Saw him at a lush green garden venue in Denver in 2002, it was magical.
Saw him in Perth during the 1000 Years of Popular Music tour- it is either a testament to tour planning or by a very strange sense of humour that he didn’t play ‘Bonnie St Johnstone’.*
It was, however, a magical evening in which he said he was going to ‘leave Britney alone’ and played Nelly Furtado’s ‘Maneater’. In Latin.
Whenever I try to turn someone on to Richard Thompson, I invariably get asked “Isn’t he the guy who played John-Boy?”
I’ve seen him several times in concert, usually an acoustic solo performance but once with his band. The night we went to see him with the full band, I told my wife “It would be really cool to hear them play ‘Tear Stained Letter’”. Well, they came out and opened the show with it, and after the song was over I turned to my wife and said “Okay, we can go now.”
One of his acoustic shows I saw I was dead center about three rows back. I was mesmerized just watching his fingers flying around the instrument, especially on “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”. I agree with the OP that I don’t understand why he isn’t more hugely popular, but I like the fact that he’s not because that means I can go see him in a small venue and get my money’s worth.
(Now I need to go check his website and see when he’s coming around again!)
Just seeing this thread and have to run to a meeting, but from a guitarist’s standpoint, he is one of those guitarist’s guitarist type of guys. Hard not to be in awe of what he can do on a fretboard…
By all accounts, I should love Richard Thompson. Back in my obsessive music collecting days I had bought all -well,most- of his CDs. I love Sandy Denny and IIRC, RT did amazing mandolin work on her song “Listen, Listen”. I’ve heard countless cover versions of “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” by folks like Mary Lou Lord and Greg Brown. I used to have a couple RT guitar books to play along with his music which had very interesting and cool chord progressions that bucked the I IV V folk trends.
Yet, I was never compelled to keep listening.
So what is the stranded island Richard Thompson CD that I should listen to over and over until I “get it”?
As to why he is not more popular, listen to the song, Dear Janet Jackson; the band French Frith Kaiser Thompson(and he was the most ‘normal’ of the group; or the Grizzly Man Soundtrack.
They change everyday, but my top 5 favorite RT tracks today, in no particular order: Cooksferry Queen
King of Bohemia
Razor Dance
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me
March of the Cosmetic Surgeons (French Frith Kaiser Thompson)
I have nothing of substance to advance the thread other than to say I roadied for RT once about 15 years ago. It was only for one night, a local club owner booked him to play and paid me and a friend $50 each to help out. I’d never heard of him before but was most pleasantly surprised when I did, the man’s a fabulous talent.
Not much to say about the night (besides the music), I scored coke for the lady who ran the light show and directed the equipment guy to a good vegetarian restaurant. As the stage was being set up I did get a chance to speak with him briefly. I don’t recall how the conversation turned to Sufism but I got assigned the task of handling his guitar cases because I knew who Mulla Nasrudin was.
He seemed like a genuinely nice, down to earth guy. I somehow doubt the notion of “stardom” means that much to him.
My personal recommendation would be “Mock Tudor”. I don’t think you’ll even have to listen to it over and over to “get it”. Once should be enough. (Although that’s not to say you won’t want to listen to it over and over anyway!)
Been a fan since Shoot Out The Lights. Just got the box set. And I’d like to mention that Beat The Retreat, the RT tribute album, is probably the only tribute album in existence worth buying.
Anyone with that album in any format is a true fan!
As for recommended album, my choice is “Rumor and Sigh” with both 1952 Vincent and the hilarious “Heard About Love.” Richard can be very funny when not in his Doom and Gloom phase.
However “Hand of Kindness” has the best opening (Tear-Stained Letter) and closing (Two Left Feet) songs of any album I know of.
"I feel so good I’m going to break somebody’s heart tonight
I feel so good I’m going to take someone apart tonight
They put me in jail for my deviant ways
Two years seven months and sixteen days
Now I’m back on the street in a purple haze
And I feel so good, and I feel so good
Well I feel so good I’m going to break somebody’s heart tonight"
