S/D: Richard Thompson

At any given time it seems like he has one song that serves as his big blowin’ vehicle live. Last time I saw him electric w band it was “Hard on Me”

cool!

I'll def go see him when I get the chance

This is fantastic!

xpost Always worth pointing out that Richard Thompson is the rare total artist. He is an electric guitar virtuoso, but he is also an acoustic guitar virtuoso, and he is also a good singer and songwriter, and he is also a really fun performer. Pretty rare to find somebody that flies high in all of those categories, super easy to take him for granted.

Otm

(I was talking about the new album, btw, not the video, which I haven't watched yet.)

Thanks for clarifying, was wondering.

xpost Always worth pointing out that Richard Thompson is the rare total artist. He is an electric guitar virtuoso, but he is also an acoustic guitar virtuoso, and he is also a good singer and songwriter, and he is also a really fun performer. Pretty rare to find somebody that flies high in all of those categories, super easy to take him for granted.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, September 24, 2018 7:50 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

v true

Yes, he's very entertaining and funny live.

Has he written anything.
JUst wondering if a memoir by him would be good . & not sure if there's any prose stuff of any note to look at.

Personal beliefs of his wouldn't go against him writing a thing like that would they? Not sure what sufism thinks of such things.
I know that there is a problem with depiction of the human form in Islamic religious art.

he's writing a memoir now — out next fall.

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/faber-signs-60s-legend-richard-thompson-735351

Should be good, he's a smart guy.

Does anyone have any live recordings where RT performs "A Blind Step Away"? It's probably in my top 5 songs of his and it seems like he almost never played it?

i don't think i've heard a live version ... have you heard the june tabor cover? pretty nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-6DxQZxNI

I downloaded the french frith kaiser thompson live boot which seems to be the only time he’s performed it other than a 2007 all-request show which I couldn’t find. Wow what a ridiculous show the ffkt one is! Completely awesome.

Lurve those French Frith Kaiser Thompson albums, tongue-in-cheek shtick and all.

http://thequietus.com/articles/25409-richard-thompson-interview-favourite-albums

never knew his first band was with Hugh Cornwell

Emil & the Detectives innit?
THink that's a bit of trivia that turns up every so often.
Shows how old the pair were, I think Thompson was very young in the early days of the band and Cornwell quite old for punk.

http://test-nodep.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/main_image/photo/richardthompsonyoung.jpg

I want a Thompson/Cornwell collaboration NOW!

Yeah, haven't heard about them having worked together since then but it would probably be somewhat interesting.

Cornwell reminisces about that photo, quoted on the Hoffman boards:

I remember getting the violin bass guitar I’m holding here, I was about 15 and had saved up £50 for it. Before then I’d been playing a homemade version with a neck the thickness of a plank of wood. Richard Thompson suggested I learn to play bass because he was forming Emil and the Detectives (the band in the picture) and he needed a bass player, so he taught me. We were good friends from school and we played each other music that we had discovered, like the Rolling Stones and the Who. Richard’s older sister, Perri, who was the social secretary at the Hornsey College of Art in north London, would book us to play parties and pay us £30 per gig. Our biggest claim to fame was supporting Helen Shapiro at the Ionic cinema in Golders Green. But after we took our O-levels we lost touch. The next I heard he was the lead guitarist in Fairport Convention…

...In August 2008 I was doing a festival outside Madrid and the promoter said, ‘If we hurry we can catch the end of Richard Thompson’s set.’ I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen Richard in 30 years. We had a big huggy reunion and now we’re back in touch it’s really lovely. When I played in LA last year he came to watch and I suggested that we play a song together. I chose “Tobacco Road” by the Nashville Teens, which was a number one hit in the 1960s and was one of the first songs we learnt together.

Aw.

Meanwhile I am seeking a version of "Happy Days and Auld Lang Syne" that I think was done on Prairie Home Companion in 2001 or 2002. Or any live version from about that time.

The recorded version on Old Kit Bag does not work for me. Early and live was simpler and better.

Most of his stuff is better live, always seems too polite in the studio.

ok so i read the thompson baker's dozen and I really really need to hear the waterson's Frost and Fire now

just heard an interview with richard thompson on my way home from a show and the interviewer asked him if/how much/how he practices (if he does) and he said that he likes to noodle while he's watching tv. the interviewer asked what kind of tv is good for practicing to and richard thompson said "the big bang theory"

just a little something to store away in the brain and never think about again. the performances were good, here is the link https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2018/10/22/658169717/richard-thompson-on-world-cafe

Curt Kirkwood (meat puppets) said that’s how he practices in an old interview I remember
I’ve done a lot of that too. It’s really fun.

read recently that he lives in NJ now after the breakup of his marriage (the women for whom he left Linda). Weird turn of events, sort of always thought that maybe I'd randomly run into him out here but since he is a teetotaler and was a Westsider, that was pretty unlikely ; )

i've got no issue with watching tv while practicing -- i watched six seasons of dawnson's creek while practicing! -- it was his choice of programming that made me lol
it would be so cool to run into richard thompson in the wild. he sounded pretty affable in the interview.

There was a 60 Minutes profile of Yo-Yo Ma years ago and I remember him saying he liked to practice w/tv on -- specifically cricket whenever he was in a cricket playing country.

oops dawson's creek
watching something light while practicing really does allow the automaticity of playing to take over imo, esp if you're practicing something very repetitive (rather than playing in a more creative way)

just a little something to store away in the brain and never think about again.

haha ugh. Gonna see him in a couple of weeks, will try to forget this.

This whole practising while watching TV business sounds totally crazy to me but maybe I'd practise more if I did that idk.

Mindful practice is generally my goal so dividing attention with TV sounds wrong but I wonder if it could work in a counterintuitive way.

it is kind of like knitting, i would imagine? it also requires counting and precise hand movements but can be done (well!) with automaticity while mentally engaged in something else.

Hm, well, mm-kay, I might try it.

I always watch tv shows or movies while practicing. It actually helps me focus more (on my practicing, not on the movie/show) (but sometimes that too, and simultaneously).

That's what RT said he's been doing all along, practicing in front of the TV. I've read interviews saying that was his thing even c. (or before?) Fairport, just sitting in front of the TV and playing guitar.

OK, well, clearly I've been doing it wrong. I'll try this at least once.

Fripp has said that he does this as well… it seems to me that practicing this way keeps your hands and fingers limber, doing scales and otherwise fucking around …doing exercise as such absent-mindedly can produce excellent results, hidden intention in that your fingers and lizard brain can turn up unconscious shit that mindful practice won't…

Makes sense. Also reminds me of the section in a popular book about jazz guitar in which the author mentions another musician who would watch TV- Bowling For Dollars, I think, with the sound off and the metronome on, although this off course has a different purpose.

Everyone I knew growing up who played guitar noodled while watching TV. It's not great practice if you're trying to improve technique or learn new things or whatever imo,but just good for keeping your hand in

It may not be the best thing if you only ever practice that way, but if you already practice a few hours a day the hard way or else are already pretty proficient, perhaps gigging frequently, and then add a few hours of tv practice on top of that well then that might be just the thing

I practised Bach while watching Patriot Act tonight. Still not 100% sold on this but I could see it working in the way that James Redd describes.

I will noodle about sometimes while doing something else. It's less about practicing specific scales or modes or pieces or whatever, just about keeping my fingers engaged with the instrument and making sure they're familiar with what I am going to ask them to do when I'm playing more intentionally.

This is particularly helpful when I am switching between instruments with different scale lengths, number of strings, and intervals between strings. The last couple years I have been focused on bass, and then mandolin. They are completely different physical interfaces, and my fingers took time to get used to them. As a result, I barely picked up a guitar - and it showed, once I tried to play guitar. My fingers had forgotten all the distances.

TV noodling cured that.

I can't stand his voice! I've tried many times over the years. I still enjoy Linda's solo record, Versatile Heart. It's a very "Starbucks in the 2000s" sound, but the songs are excellent.

The main reason I keep trying is "A Heart Needs A Home," specifically the outtake version on "The End of the Rainbow" best of, which is incredible. It's not on YouTube, but it's on Spotify.

I practised Bach while watching Patriot Act tonight. Still not 100% sold on this

So. Guys. I've been working at this piece forever but usually still need to refer to the music at least partway through and/or stumble somewhere. Today, I came back to it tonight after trying the Netflix experiment yesterday. My fingers had memorized the whole thing. I could rip through it from start to finish at tempo without needing to pause once. I could just identify a couple of spots to work on but that's all I would need to focus on in mindful practice.

Ha!

Yet another variant of the practice technique road tested by Sund4r and YMR:
https://www.facebook.com/ricardo.lew.9/videos/10216953507405306/UzpfSTEwMDAwMjc0Njk3Njg3ODoxNjQ1Mzk5MjA4ODk0OTYy/

Aargh, YMP.