S/D: Richard Thompson

RT can be relentlessly bleak when it comes to the human condition (guess that's to be expected form the dude whose first song has the lines "let me learn to despise"). all well and good, but it can be kind of exhausting -- might be why the grizzly man sdtk is probably the solo record i've listened to the most in the past decade or so.

A lot of beautiful, wintery musical sound effects though, incl on Electric, esp. but not only the Deluxe Edition, and dig the snowplowed highways of Acoustic Classics.

But yeah, it can be strenuous.

Feel kinda guilty re comments on Rufus, Loudon, RT--they can all be great, esp. the geezers, but tney're so prolific, can't help noticing the patterns and tropes and other tech elements per se, like w yr fave director, Big Hollywood or indie.

― dow, Tuesday, November 11, 2014 12:31 PM (18 minutes ago)

Think it's the fatalistic element in old-school Romanticism tho': he's still after that dream, at least musically. Also into the lower-case, "lower-class" kind, at least as a turn-on, but it's the "Beeswing" girl who is sleeping rough, not him, while he still loves her wild child spirit (out there somewhere, not in his face all the time).

RT from basically the split with Linda onward is a distanced storyteller for me, like you said dow, a crafter of tales. I can't deny this has been somewhat a detriment for me.

RT from basically the split with Linda onward is a distanced storyteller for me

He's not the most confessional or poetic sort. He's pretty firmly in the mode of, say, '50s rock and roll, if not the mold. Really the sum of his parts, I think. Pop, rock, folk, but little of the mystery of Dylan, for one. It can definitely be read as a distancing effect, but I listen to RT as I would , yeah, a short story writer, albeit one who recognizes his short story is 4 minutes long, and can sometimes be told with guitar. We're definitely spoiled. Not a lot of duff in his catalog, so consistency seems like a detriment. At least all the rest of the clan have youth on their side, or in the case of Linda, a few decades off, but RT has pretty much been killing it since he was barely out of his teens.

for all his 80s, 90s and 00s stuff I find myself relishing his live releases much more than the studio albums. Semi-detached Mock Tudor, for ex., knocks Mock Tudor into the fucking ditch. All that Froominess was just not really right for him. I did really like the way Old Kit Bag sounded, though.

I think I'm at least two albums behind by now, though. Maybe three.

(I realize only some of those records were produced by Froom, but you get the idea)

richard thompson is a god-tier (ugh, hate that phrase, but it came to mind) songwriter and guitarist but i feel like his "bleak" outlook as expressed in his songs has always seemed a little wilfull, and with each passing album it seems cornier and cornier.

btw if you ever have a chance to see him live, with or without a band, DO IT.

and i hate the way froom likes really busy drum patterns and mixes them really high. it almost seems like he tried to apply some ideas from hip-hop in a "roots music" context but did so in a ham-handed way. all very 1990s.

Yeah, but "Rumour and Sigh" is great, and totally Froomy. The mix might be Tchad Blake at work, he is more percussive.

even rumor and sigh is kind of marred by some questionable mixing choices IMO.

Those Froom albums are also fucking LONG. CD bloat + From clinkclank = welcome to the '90s.

For all that though I have affection for "Feel So Good" (for once he's playing malice instead of letting his guitar do it for him), "Beeswing," "Shane and Dixie," (he should write about fame and love more often) and most of Amnesia, the best of the Froom albums.

Still, "Rumour & Sigh" is the last RT album to have a handful of songs he absolutely must play live. It's hard to believe "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" hails from the '90s, and wasn't in his quiver for the preceding 25 years of his career.

Lol at your prior post, and the typo is the icing on the cake
(Xp to Alfred)

BTW, is there anyone else like Thompson, who is not only a virtuoso on both electric and acoustic guitars, but is also a good singer and, most importantly, a great songwriter? It's a surprisingly rare combo.

Prince
David Byrne
Brad Paisley
Caetano Veloso
Neil Finn

I might put Springsteen on that list. Roger McGuinn too. Probably tons of guys not coming to mind right now. Also depends on how you define 'virtuoso.'

DB is no guitar virtuoso, much as I love him. Prince isn't much of an acoustic guitar guy. Caetano Maybe ... Neil Finn is awesome, but sort of modest in his genius so it's hard to tell how good he is at guitar. The Boss is a great guitar player, but pretty meat and potatoes. Great list, though! Paisley might come closest, as a total guitar guy, electric and acoustic, and a singer-songwriter who is good at both (when he is good).

Johnny Marr is an acoustic and electric virtuoso, and a good songwriter, but not much of a singer, and even on the songwriting front works best as a collaborator.

I've seen enough clips of acoustic Prince before the zealotry of his legal team pulled'em from YouTube to know he's excellent at pickin'.

Many people will lose on the acoustic virtuosity. Like, does Marshall Crenshaw play acoustic?

and if so, is he a virtuoso?

The acoustic is the catch. Johnny Marr, Jimmy Page ... those are a couple aces on both.

Speaking of Neil Finn, one of my fave Richard Thompson solos is his in-and-out appearance on "Sister Madly" from "Temple of Low Men."

Huh, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNJgkGYHomc

and of course Tim Finn's RT cowrite "Persuasion."

marshall C is a bad mufuggah re: guitar…but indeed RT is a complete musician in ways few can compare…in 25 years of a being a big fan, I gotta say I'm not into "1952 Black Lightning," in that that was the song annoying vin scelsa listeners/ people who love the bottom line repped for…in the past ten years, I really dig this tune "One Door Opens" from the Old Kit Bag…

Neil Young is the standard, I would think. Of course this depends on what you mean by virtuoso.

Also, Lindsey Buckingham. No quarrel with the singer/songwriter part, but can't think of a single thing Bruce Springsteen has done on guitar that I would describe as virtuostic. Most of the time he's is mixed so low I can't tell what he is doing at all on guitar.

thompson is for sure my favorite musician who makes terrible records, my lord can that guy play

Townshend's fearsome acoustic fingerpicking has informed his electric approach in such a way in the last 15 years or so as to vault his playing far beyond anything his contemporaries are doing.

(also, wrote a few good songs)

Townshend not a bad suggestion.

Now feel like maybe the concept Josh was trying to get out was someone who was originally known as a guitarist then branched out as singer/songwriter and kept up his guitar chops without growing bland and boring but I dunno.

Hey it's Marshall Crenshaw's birthday today. HB, MC! on the RT thread.

MC sings RT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxirrFKl3YQ

And the man himself burning it up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGhHbJo7PCE

i was gonna say, roy harper is a pretty great acoustic and electric player and no slouch as a songwriter (obviously a horrible human being, though)

it's prob worth noting that thompson really solos like a songwriter -- hi solos tend to be really well thought-out, structurally.

also, maybe michael chapman? though frankly he's nowhere near RT's level as a songwriter.

i've seen him live... four times i think, and this song never fails to raise the hairs on my neck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yw2yKNLEPc

btw RT is one of those artists that my mom and i love in equal measure, so we've gone to several of his shows together :)

I always think of Robyn Hitchcock and rt and Tom Verlaine together. Robyn and Tom v are not virtuosos exactly but they are great guitarists who developed extremely idiosyncratic styles which inform the grammar of their songwriting, and both followed lightning-in-bottle band situations with long taken-for-granted solo careers. (If only tom v was as prolific as RH and RT in that regard).

You? Me? Us? was the first RT album I ever heard and I love it to bits even though it's very Froomy in parts. I wouldn't place bloody Robyn Hitchcock anywhere near Thompson as a songwriter, he's just not in the same league.

Neil Young is definitely a distinctive acoustic and electric player, so while he's really not a virtuoso (Stephen Stills is), he probably counts. I'd say someone like Townshend (a RT fave) but really he hasn't written a significant song in decades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0u5EqSM6_4

His regular website Q&As are illuminating:

http://archive.richardthompson-music.com/questionsandanswers.asp

yeah, neil young as a guy who keeps trying to create as best he can but is a guy who self-identified guitarists may love but do not consider a virtuoso, vs Townshend as a guy universally regarded as a virtuoso, if an idiosyncratic one, but who does not seem to have any interest in making new music (the couple of songs I heard from Endless wire were pitiful, as if he had to write songs for a flagging Daltrey; it's long been strange to me that he can't just make a Pete Townshend album, with no unwieldy concept burdening the who thang, certainly he must have something on his mind and the ability to record music, but maybe he does and doesn't release it, instead going on one lame Who tour after another).

guy who keeps trying to do his best, songwriting-wise + guy who other guitar players, even if they're dumb tone attorneys who only understand eric johnson/Stevie ray vaughn/ metal/whatever, when they see him are blown the fuck away = RT.

"the whole thang"

oh man i love the tone attorneys, great band

Strangest thing on RT's CV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awkSF3wAdts

certainly he must have something on his mind and the ability to record music, but maybe he does and doesn't release it

See also: Page, Jimmy.