He's known to legions of music nerd fans as "King Richard." He is a stubborn English Bulldog of folk-rock-music-style (whatever that is). Widespread commercial success would have enveloped him literally decades ago if he might but have listened to music executives... and, may the music gods bless him for NOT having done so!
RT's musical roots are Americana; but, if it can be said that Brit "invasion" rockers of the sixties brought North Americans back to their own heritage of blues, gospel, country, etc. via the rock 'n' roll medium - then so too would folk rock music find it's earlier beginnings through artists like Richard Thompson.
Allegedly, folks appreciate being "cheered up" by their music. Apparently music must be sunny & cheery or smooth and innocuous. One must not be brought any further down. Richard Thompson does not agree with this line of thought. If a sad story is told in a song then he relishes that his own sad thoughts are valid. If something dreadful comes about in a passage of lyrics, then, to him it could not be any worse than the evening news. Indeed he does us all "one better" and wherever possible (within the bounds of good taste) he makes light of it.
In the intro to this clip RT talks about his penchant for writing songs with dark or sad subject matter. Kind of reminds me of someone else we know in that regard. The song "Beeswing" from the 1994 album Mirror Blue is a ballad that tells a sorrowful story of love found and lost:
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
RT is between Jack White and John Mclaughlin on Rolling Stone's updated 2011 list of 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time. He is much closer to the top of the list on David Fricke's 2003 selection.
In the last years of the sixties it must have seemed as if guitar prodigies grew on trees. Perhaps listeners thought the likes of Clapton, Page, Harrison, Hendrix, Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Clarence White, Mick Taylor, Roy Buchanan, etc. were just going to keep coming along indefinately. If this were the case, then a scarcely twenty-year-old Richard Thompson on lead guitar for the stellar 1969 Fairport Convention trilogy of albums {What We Did On Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, Liege & Lief} was just another. Ho hum.
'69, '69, '69
As a kid, young Richard had the benefit of his father's vast collection of Jazz records available to him, whilst drinking in Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis on the radio. The early Fairport stuff is heavily influenced by Dylan and The Band; also it brings a dash of Jefferson Airplane to the mix. Musical talent was in no shortage with this band that would eventually tour the U.S. as an opening act for CSN & Y in 1970. Thompson was immediately restless that they were not playing original music when the band debuted in '67, when (like The Byrds) they were leaning on Dylan tunes that were either unreleased or had less radio play. One of RT's earliest compositions was a song called "Genesis Hall" which appears on Unhalfbricking:
When the rivers run thicker than trouble
I'll be there at your side in the flood
T'was all I could do to keep myself
From taking revenge on your blood
Thompson's debut as a solo artist was a 1972 album Henry The Human Fly. It has the ignominious status as having been the the worst selling record in the history of Warner Brothers:
This album is actually a template for his later critical if not commercial success as a solo artist. The music combines a unique blend of folk rock that's identifiably British and which delivers a literary style of lyrical storytelling laid down over masterful and diverse Thompson guitar trade-craft.
"The Poor Ditching Boy" from Henry The Human Fly:
Richard Thompson married Linda Peters in the early seventies, and, Linda became the vocal delivery to Richard's songwriting. They are best known for the 1982 "break-up" album Shoot Out The Lights:
Although Shoot Out the Lights is number nine on Rolling Stone's list of "100 Best Albums of the Eighties," the first three albums they produced are phenomenally good as well (if not permeated by the same level of angst):
'74, '75, '75
Fantastic 1974 title track from Richard & Linda Thompson's I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight:
A couple of drunken nights rolling on the floor
Is just the kind of mess I'm looking for
I'm gonna dream 'till Monday comes in sight
I want to see the bright lights tonight
Calvary Cross:
Here is Elvis Costello + The Impostors backing RT in 2009 on "Shoot Out The Lights" which is the title track from the aforementioned last album with Linda.
In the dark, who can see his face?
In the dark, who can reach him?
He hides like a child. He hides like a child.
Keeps his finger on the trigger
You know he can't stand the day
Shoot out the lights.
If possible, here is one that's even darker... "When The Spell Is Broken" from the 1985 album Across A Crowded Room:
RT in the 80's:
RT in the 90's:
RT seems to have made an art-form of getting let go from record labels. By the nineties he actually turned this trend around, and, had a clause written in with Capitol that allowed him to self-release his own live albums.
"1952 Vincent Black Lightning" from the 1991 album Rumor And Sigh might be RT's most popular song:
Says James "In my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl.
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeves won't do,
Ah, they don't have a soul like a Vincent 52"
Oh he reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
Said "I've got no further use for these.
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome,
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home"
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride.
This clip is really outstanding featuring RT in top form with a full band. The song is "Cooksferry Queen" from the 1999 album Mock Tudor:
She could get the lame to walking
She could get the blind to see
She could make wine out of Thames river water
She could make a believer out of me
Also from Mock Tudor is this gem "Sibella":
Like a myth you rode in from the west
From the go you had my button pressed
Did the tea-time of your soul
Make you long for wilder days?
Did you never let Jack Kerouac
Wash over you in waves?
Mock Tudor is a truly fine album in that the production was a live-in-the-studio style that seems to best suit RT. He seems to have stuck with this format since. Prior to Mock Tudor RT had been working with Mitchell Froom for a series of albums dating back to the late '80's, and, some critics have found that what worked wonders for Los Lobos on The Neighborhood and Kiko may have occasionally stifled his more otherwise organic delivery. Beyond any of that music industry babble, however, is a truly phenomenal collection of songs. It's just a plain old great record.
Walking The Long Miles Home:
Dad's Gonna Kill Me from Sweet Warrior:
Haul Me Up from Dream Attic:
From the new album:
These are a treat:
documentary on RT who truly comes across as a personable "musician's musician" (seven parts):
