― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 04:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 07:05 (nineteen years ago) link
Search: ALL of the live "guitar vocal," especially the smoldering workouts on "Calvary Cross" and "Night Comes In." Song favorites: "When I Get To the Border," "I'll Regret It All in the Morning," "Beeswing."
Someone needs to compile a definitive list of RT's guest appearances (actually, I'm sure some obsessive fan already has). Some nice ones: mandolin bit on John Martyn's "Over the Hill," the entire "Rise Up Like the Sun" album by the Albion Band, "Blackwaterside" off Sandy Denny's "Northstar Grassmen," "Claudy Banks" by Shirley Collins, SO many more.
Anybody rate the second French Frith Kaiser Thompson LP? I've never heard that one.
― briania (briania), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 12:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 17:54 (nineteen years ago) link
― shookout (shookout), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 20:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― briania (briania), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 20:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― 57 7th (calstars), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 22:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 22:12 (nineteen years ago) link
― stew, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 22:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― stew, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 22:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 22:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― (Jon L), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 22:25 (nineteen years ago) link
Good to hear love for 'The Old Kit Bag', which I'm still enjoying. The power trio really suits him, and it's nice to hear a Christine Collister-surrogate again. I'll Tag Along, Gethsemane, Pearly Jim, and Word Unspoken, Sight Unseen stand out the most. Mock Tudor, on the other hand, is, well, almost without redemption. It's his only album since Sunnyvista that I'd delete wholesale.
If possible, track down the live versions of When the Spell Has Broken and Aint Gonna Drag My Feet No More from the Watching The Dark collection(which should be on your x-mas list anyway).
― derrick (derrick), Thursday, 23 December 2004 01:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jim Reckling (Jim Reckling), Thursday, 23 December 2004 02:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― derrick (derrick), Thursday, 23 December 2004 02:49 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.richardthompson-music.com/catch_of_the_day.asp?id=90
― Ken L (Ken L), Thursday, 23 December 2004 03:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― Johnney B (Johnney B), Thursday, 23 December 2004 16:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 23 December 2004 16:12 (nineteen years ago) link
That version of "Calvary Cross" must be the same one on the boxed set. "Devonside" is an amazingly sad song. "Great Valerio" is another favorite of mine.
― Earl Nash (earlnash), Thursday, 23 December 2004 16:40 (nineteen years ago) link
Sean; his 'Kiss', by Prince is incredible. find it.
― derrick (derrick), Thursday, 23 December 2004 18:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jim Reckling (Jim Reckling), Sunday, 22 January 2006 21:48 (eighteen years ago) link
post Linda output hit or miss, definitely mostly miss after rumor and sigh.
Basically, if he's wearing a beret on the cover art, buyer beware!!
― anna graham, Monday, 23 January 2006 07:05 (eighteen years ago) link
UnhalbrickingI Want to See the Bright Lights TonightPour Down Like SilverShoot Out the LightsHenry the Human Fly"Calvery Cross" (live)"Sloth"
All Good
Fairport Convention (aka What We Did on our Holidays)Hand of KindnessAmnesiaIndustryThe French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson Albums
Half Good
Liege and LiefRumour and Sigh1000 Years of Popular Music
No Good
First LightSunnyvista
For Fans
Pretty much everything else
― Chuck B, Monday, 23 January 2006 15:58 (eighteen years ago) link
Waltzing's for DreamersHappy Days and Auld Lang Syne Turning of the TideTempted cover
RT songs that are pretty well regarded but that I still think are good:
GethsemaneI Want to See the Bright Lights TonightKiss cover
RT songs that I have a soft spot in my heart for but which I think may very well be overrated by now:
52 Vincent Black LightningBeeswing
― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 01:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 01:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 01:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 01:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― anna graham, Tuesday, 24 January 2006 07:38 (eighteen years ago) link
WTF???!!! It's only the pinnacle of English folk rock (Along with No Roses natch)
― stew!, Tuesday, 24 January 2006 09:48 (eighteen years ago) link
Well, that's what they all tell us
― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 10:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― Masked Gazza, Tuesday, 24 January 2006 10:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― clotpoll, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Emily Bjurnhjam, Monday, 26 February 2007 23:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 26 February 2007 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 00:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― clotpoll, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 01:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― Vornado, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 17:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jazzbo, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 17:58 (seventeen years ago) link
Anyone have anything to say about the new album Sweet Warrior yet?
― Jon Lewis, Thursday, 31 May 2007 15:09 (sixteen years ago) link
The Grizzly Man OST is awesome. My favorite record of 2006.
Also search the DVD of Grizzly Man for the hourlong documentary about the making of the soundtrack.
― Steve Shasta, Thursday, 31 May 2007 15:39 (sixteen years ago) link
Sweet Warrior's very uneven - some great, tense stuff and some goofy awkward old-man bullshit too. I think I liked his last album, the acoustic Front Parlour Ballads, better.
― JoshLove, Thursday, 31 May 2007 15:46 (sixteen years ago) link
So similar hit/miss ratio to Old Kit Bag?
It's on Shout Factory instead of Cooking Vinyl, so I can't cherry pick the good tracks off eMusic this time :(
― Jon Lewis, Thursday, 31 May 2007 16:19 (sixteen years ago) link
Don't think anyone's mentioned 'How Will I ever be Simple Again?' - nearly up there with Beeswing as a late gem
― sonofstan, Thursday, 12 July 2007 21:40 (sixteen years ago) link
i can't get enuf of this man's voice
― Surmounter, Monday, 30 July 2007 20:22 (sixteen years ago) link
Anyone have that huge 5 disc set of odds and ends that came out in the last year or two? I've heard mixed reviews, it seems like you've got to be insanely into RT to want it. I haven't been into his last 10 years, though the 1000 Years Of Popular Music shows were fun.
― Mr. Odd, Monday, 30 July 2007 22:01 (sixteen years ago) link
hey! sweet warrior is good. not very good, just good. the (locally owned and operated) classic rock station in my town plays "'dad's gonna kill me" constantly, which is ballsy and awesome, seeing as it's an explicitly anti-war song.
― Emily Bjurnhjam, Monday, 30 July 2007 23:18 (sixteen years ago) link
xmas present for my uncle, who's into dylan of all ages and early cohen. well he's also into late leonard cohen but i'm just not ready to provoke that.
i love "i want to see the bright lights," but i also think some more solo male rock stuff would be more up his alley -- suggestions?
― Surmounter, Thursday, 20 December 2007 15:50 (sixteen years ago) link
Finally got IWTSTBLT, and I love it. Am most drawn to the first half, which is a bit more pop-oriented in songwriting. I like the second half, but am not so into the folk tropes. Where do I go next? Where can I find more songs like the first four songs on this record?
― G00blar, Monday, 28 April 2008 15:49 (sixteen years ago) link
When I Get to the Border, Calvary Cross, Withered and Died, and title track, btw.
― G00blar, Monday, 28 April 2008 15:50 (sixteen years ago) link
check out the albm R&L put out next, "Pour Down Like Silver." Those are my favorite songs on Bright Lights too, and I like Pour Down Like SIlver even more.
― ian, Monday, 28 April 2008 16:01 (sixteen years ago) link
They say it’s the only thing worth living for.
― Because the Nighttoad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 2 May 2023 02:52 (one year ago) link
Sunday supplemental reading re RT: first. over on the current What Are You Reading thread, Electric Eden came up, and Chinaski said,
liked *Electric Eden*, though I think I felt like Daniel does about *The Magic Box*: it's a fantastic work of archaeology but the archival instinct is so all-consuming, it ultimately outruns itself. Or, less politely, it goes on a bit. I've just discovered the long-ass review I wrote about it, which, well, goes on a bit: https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/book-reviews/the-history-of-british-music-rob-youngs-electric-eden-36400― Stars of the Lidl (Chinaski), Thursday, May 18, 2023Excellent--- and I can see from your Young take, more than ever, that I'm going to have to read the damn book at some point(as well as Toop's)---and you end with the questions that your descriptions led me toward--as far as the possibility of a visionary pushing past-through nostalgia and intimations x certainty of a fraught future (we know the environmental factors as well or better than we care to, but not how and when things will shake out, though the timeline keeps bumping forward in latest projections), since this is ILB, I'll mention a writer who sure tries, if with mixed results, having his own struggles with nostalgia, and that is Kim Stanley Robinson.I hope that Young cites Richard Thompson as a folk-rock songwriter who has never dealt much in nostalgia, except his occasionally overt conservative-reactionary tendencies could be a form of that, although never really "It used to be better dammit," more just disgust or sere vibe/sound, then on to something else. Occasional roots-work-outs are mainly for fun now, the scenic route to that (with a little mental cosplay if ye like).― dow, Thursday, May 18, 2023 3:10 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglinkThompson does build from the lyrical-lurid arterial trees of many ancient sources, pop artistry before pop (like Harry Smith turns into liner notes' tabloid headlines drawn from the musical contents of his Smithsonian Anthology). RT's "Beeswing" effectively (whatever his conscious intention) comments on the possible consequences of this kind of appetite, incl. on male collector-questlovers, as the waltzing wild child, now seen as increasingly self-destructive, keeps telling the earnest ex-bf narrator, "You wouldn't have me any other way." (perhaps Thompson does relate this to his own interests, having since used the song's title for that his memoir of youth, which he's said involves not-always-the-right-decisions).On the negative, reactionary side, when he was offended by Sting's rain forest advocacy, this son of a London cop songfully sneered at the son of a Newcastle area milkman for being a "little Geordie" who didn't know his place (also by being much more $uccessful than Thompson, while rarely being as much an artist: white trash with money)---I wonder if Young's book deals with classism and related matters?― dow, Thursday, May 18, 2023 4:05 PM (three days ago)
― Stars of the Lidl (Chinaski), Thursday, May 18, 2023
Excellent--- and I can see from your Young take, more than ever, that I'm going to have to read the damn book at some point(as well as Toop's)---and you end with the questions that your descriptions led me toward--as far as the possibility of a visionary pushing past-through nostalgia and intimations x certainty of a fraught future (we know the environmental factors as well or better than we care to, but not how and when things will shake out, though the timeline keeps bumping forward in latest projections), since this is ILB, I'll mention a writer who sure tries, if with mixed results, having his own struggles with nostalgia, and that is Kim Stanley Robinson.
I hope that Young cites Richard Thompson as a folk-rock songwriter who has never dealt much in nostalgia, except his occasionally overt conservative-reactionary tendencies could be a form of that, although never really "It used to be better dammit," more just disgust or sere vibe/sound, then on to something else. Occasional roots-work-outs are mainly for fun now, the scenic route to that (with a little mental cosplay if ye like).
― dow, Thursday, May 18, 2023 3:10 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink
Thompson does build from the lyrical-lurid arterial trees of many ancient sources, pop artistry before pop (like Harry Smith turns into liner notes' tabloid headlines drawn from the musical contents of his Smithsonian Anthology). RT's "Beeswing" effectively (whatever his conscious intention) comments on the possible consequences of this kind of appetite, incl. on male collector-questlovers, as the waltzing wild child, now seen as increasingly self-destructive, keeps telling the earnest ex-bf narrator, "You wouldn't have me any other way." (perhaps Thompson does relate this to his own interests, having since used the song's title for that his memoir of youth, which he's said involves not-always-the-right-decisions).
On the negative, reactionary side, when he was offended by Sting's rain forest advocacy, this son of a London cop songfully sneered at the son of a Newcastle area milkman for being a "little Geordie" who didn't know his place (also by being much more $uccessful than Thompson, while rarely being as much an artist: white trash with money)---I wonder if Young's book deals with classism and related matters?
― dow, Thursday, May 18, 2023 4:05 PM (three days ago)
― dow, Sunday, 21 May 2023 18:27 (eleven months ago) link
I think I skipped right by the question, sorry! My instinct is to say the book largely avoids any grand political statements but I don't want to be unfair to Young so would have to have a re-read.
― Stars of the Lidl (Chinaski), Sunday, 21 May 2023 19:35 (eleven months ago) link
He has got songs about Jimmy Shand and Al Bowlly so there's some nostalgia going on there.
― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Sunday, 21 May 2023 19:40 (eleven months ago) link
I never even knew who Jimmy Shand was until I saw him do that song at Summerstage in Central Park.
― Cathy Berberian Begins at Home (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 21 May 2023 19:42 (eleven months ago) link
Oh yeah, "Al Bowlly's In Heaven," shoulda thought of that.
I wasn't thinking of xpost grand political statements, but more like how class might have affected or suggest ways of seeing, hearing the presentations of scholars and artists. For inst, Pete Seeger, whatever his choice of sources and arrangements, they were unified by his respectfully refined vocal style, which I heard as genteel, and you could argue that it made folk music more acceptable as a genre or subgenre, providing a gateway for rougher voices, deeper artists, such as Woody Guthrie; genteel-singing Baez may have opened things up a bit for Van Ronk and Dylan.
― dow, Sunday, 21 May 2023 20:30 (eleven months ago) link
But genteel folkie vox drove some older rockheads I know in the opposite direction.
― dow, Sunday, 21 May 2023 20:33 (eleven months ago) link
Um, I am not certain that's a fair reading of "Beeswing," either the song or the book.
Every bit of criticism in the song is self-criticism. ("You foolish man" / "Like a fool I let her run" / "and I miss her more than ever words can say.")
The book is almost as wistful, and I would not classify it as self-exculpatory. He seems at least as critical of himself as most of us would be in his shoes.
Also his most famous song is a highwayman ballad, I am not certain you can extrapolate a politics from using what is among the oldest lyrical tropes in English songcraft.
I am sure that there is more cultural context about "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" than I can grasp but the lyrics seem clear that Thompson is speaking from a persona.
― she works hard for the monkey (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 21 May 2023 21:06 (eleven months ago) link
Here's what he said about "Geordie" in an interview I found:
I think generally speaking, when you're writing a song in the first person, you are trying to get into the head of somebody else. Sometimes (it's) a fictional character. Sometimes fictional characters are based on other people. You know, "Here Comes Geordie" is based on a real human being so it just becomes easy to satirize that person's shortcomings (ED NOTE: The Guardian claims that Sting is the subject of that song). But every time you're using the first person in a song, so you sing through their eyes, I think you really have to get as full a characterization as you can in two and a half minutes.
I saw Jeff Tweedy play Friday night, an all request benefit show. He joked that he was dismayed how none of the 60 songs he'd released in the four years since he last did this got requested, then doubly dismayed at the number of cover songs requested. "Well, I'm not going to play any of them," he half in jest sneered. Later in the night he noted that someone has requested "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," and that even if he was doing covers he would skip that one, because there were far too many words. He then told a story of when the band and Richard Thompson were opening for Dylan, and when the tour hit Duluth (which is on Lake Superior), they brought out Alan and Mimi from Low, in addition to Thompson, to play "Wreck." They apparently had rehearsed it, and it sounded good, but when the time came to actually play, the lyrics were taped to the stage only at the top, and kept blowing over and obscuring all the words. The musicians did the best they could, but apparently no one on stage was happy with how things turned out.
Yeah. It was bad. https://t.co/aEgPLZfNAh— LOW (@lowtheband) July 13, 2021
I found a recording of them doing the best they can, though, with all those words that not everyone knew. At least Thompson's guitar sounds good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOfN6-tziMs
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 21 May 2023 21:13 (eleven months ago) link
xxxp
Um, I am not certain that's a fair reading of "Beeswing," either the song or the book.Every bit of criticism in the song is self-criticism. ("You foolish man"/ "Like a fool I let her run" / "and I miss her more than ever words can say.")The book is almost as wistful, and I would not classify it as self-exculpatory. He seems at least as critical of himself as most of us would be in his shoes.
Every bit of criticism in the song is self-criticism. ("You foolish man"/ "Like a fool I let her run" / "and I miss her more than ever words can say.")
― dow, Sunday, 21 May 2023 21:26 (eleven months ago) link
Is being a cop's son a privileged position in terms of class for the boomer generation? Didn't Pasolini get angry at the student protests because he felt they were middle class kids opposing working class cops?
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 22 May 2023 09:30 (eleven months ago) link
Thompson's dad was no ordinary PC Plod.
― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Monday, 22 May 2023 09:42 (eleven months ago) link
I dunno, I'm speculating about why he chooses "Geordie" as the ultimate punchline put-down playground taunt of this smirky song, rather than "tree-hugging pop star" etc.---seems to be some social discrimination, with regional chauvinism, jobism (cops smarter cooler than milkmen, unto the sons 'tis given?) easily figured in.
― dow, Monday, 22 May 2023 16:07 (eleven months ago) link
I mean, since he wants to take it in that direction, I'll take it a little further.
― dow, Monday, 22 May 2023 16:08 (eleven months ago) link
(ED NOTE: The Guardian claims that Sting is the subject of that song)
LOL "claimed", it could hardly be more obvious who it's about!
― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Monday, 22 May 2023 16:57 (eleven months ago) link
My ex-brother-in-law, my sister's ex-husband, had this thing where he would shout out for "Louie Louie" at every gig he went to - I used to go to lots of gigs with him. Then they got divorced and he became persona non grata and I haven't seen him in years. However he still knows people I know and, at the weekend, I was told a story by someone who'd met him at a Richard Thompson gig. As usual, he had shouted out for "Louie Louie" but then, because of his notoriously weak bladder, he'd had to go to the bathroom - and while he was in the bathroom Richard Thompson played "Louie Louie", the first time anyone had ever played "Louie Louie" at a gig he was at and he missed it. Thank you, Richard.
― The Prime of the Ancient Minister (Tom D.), Saturday, 30 March 2024 01:02 (one month ago) link
Amazing.
― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Saturday, 30 March 2024 01:24 (one month ago) link
lol, I’d love to hear what RT could do with ‘Louie Louie’.
― Dan Worsley, Saturday, 30 March 2024 09:10 (one month ago) link
It looks like Thompson has played it at least one other time way back on Nov. 29, 2006 in Saratoga, CA, around the time the DVD version of 1000 Years of Popular Music was released. (The CD for it has already been out for several years.)
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/richard-thompson/2006/carriage-house-theatre-saratoga-ca-23f6b82b.html
Amazing selection of covers, it may have been one of his all-request shows where you write a selection on a piece of paper.
― birdistheword, Saturday, 30 March 2024 14:55 (one month ago) link