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Richard Thompson
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One of the grand conventions of Rock journalism is to lament the critically acclaimed but commercially underappreciated artist. This approach is nowhere more common than in critical evaluations of English singer/ songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire Richard Thompson.
Even though Thompson has been playing music for more than 30 years, there always seems to be the need to reintroduce him for those who have, so far, missed the boat. So here goes.
Richard Thompson came to prominence with the critically acclaimed, and yes, commercially underappreciated English Folk group Fairport Convention in the late 1960s. Leaving Fairport in 1970, Thompson made several records with then wife Linda Peters Thompson, including the critically acclaimed and so on I Wanna See The Bright Lights Tonight and Shoot Out the Lights, two albums which show up like cats 'round a tuna can whenever critics make a greatest-albums-of-all-time list. After the breakup of his marriage, Thompson began his solo career with Hand of Kindness, a critically acclaimed but commercially ... oh, never mind.
Thompson has released 11 albums since then. His latest, Mock Tudor, is one of his finest to date. CityBeat recently caught up with Thompson on tour in Kansas.
CityBeat: The weekend you come to town is the weekend of the Cincinnati Celtic Music Festival.
Richard Thompson: Oh, that's appropriate.
CB: Does Celtic music still influence your work?
RT: Absolutely, yeah. It's a big influence for me. Apart from Jerry Lee Lewis, of course. (Laughs)
CB: Is that the equivalent for you as Blues or Country might be for American musicians?
RT: Yeah, I think so. It's the music you grew up with, maybe, if you were lucky. And it's the base from which you're able to branch out and take on other styles.
CB: Even still, did you have to do a bit of digging around to find that music?
RT: Yeah, I think it was problematic. You know growing up in the '50s, it was kind of in museums, the ballads anyway. The dance music was still going in Ireland and Scotland. So I grew up listening to a lot of Scottish dance music. A lot of it had become rather fossilized and very Victorianized. It had a kind of puritanical overview to absolve the sex and the murder a bit. Which is a real shame. That's all the good stuff. (Laughs)
In Fairport Convention, in '68 or something, we sort of sat down and said, "Well, if we're going to pursue this, let's do a bit of serious research. Find some quite original versions of ballads, and let's make it as contemporary as possible. Let's give it a good backbeat."
CB: I wanted to talk about the new album, the track "Cooksferry Queen." Musically it's a sort of Country shuffle, but lyrically it's quite psychedelic in a literary sort of way.
RT: It's set in about 1967. And the Cooksferry Inn was a club we used to play in, and it was run by a kind of small-time hood. With a shark suit, you know, a really nasty guy. He used to threaten to break our kneecaps and stuff: "Turn the volume down or you'll never work again." You know, that sort of stuff. Then about six months later, we went back and played there and this guy transformed as no human being I've ever seen. He'd become basically a hippie. He'd got this hippie girlfriend, and someone had dropped him some acid, I think. He'd hug everybody when they came in. He got his hair long, a sort of cartoon hippie with sandals and beads. It was straight out of Cheech and Chong. It was an extraordinary transformation, and I'm sure he reverted later. But it was very impressive at the time.
CB: There is a lot of stylistic variety on this record in terms of the songs. One of the songs I particularly like is "Hard On Me." I love the way it plods along. It makes me wonder if you might have a secret affinity for Heavy-Seventies-British-Rock!
RT: (Laughs) I probably don't and I'd probably die if I thought it had any relationship to '70s British Rock records. Um, what do I want to say about that?
CB: Actually, it really sounds more like something Neil Young and Crazy Horse might do.
RT: Yeah (sounding relieved). That's probably more like it. I wouldn't say it's a deliberate quote. I think I started off with a tune which is actually quite a modal, Celtic sounding tune, if you divorce it from the power chords. And I think the chords just slid in under the tune somehow, and it became sort of this foursquare heavy thing.
CB: You're one of those songwriters -- like Dylan or Elvis Costello -- whose lyrics are closely scrutinized. Do you ever take issue with the interpretations that some critics make of your songs?
RT: Oh I think a lot of the time, yeah, but I think it's inevitable that journalists should be interested in finding interpretation in popular music. You know, it gives some grist to the mill. It gives them something to write about that isn't always there. So I'm kind of prepared for the scrutiny and for the misinterpretation. And that's okay. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day.
CB: Writers have referred not infrequently to some of your records as "terrifying" or "unrelenting." What do you think about that reaction?
RT: (Laughs) Oh I thought they were sort of cuddly and friendly records.
CB: Cuddly, friendly and terrifying!
RT: There are some kind of scary characters in some of the songs. And that's deliberate. Unrelenting? Sometimes I think it's good to be unrelenting. But I don't think it's always true.
CB: Hopefully this record will bring you a wider audience. I think it should. But say someone is new to you with this record. What should they get next if they want to continue listening to Richard Thompson?
RT: Golly, what a serious question. I don't know. Let's see. A compilation like Watching the Dark, I suppose, wouldn't be a bad place. Cause that's three CDs anyway.
CB: That's cheating.
RT: Yeah, OK. Rumor and Sigh was a fairly popular record. There's a few good things on that. Apart from that I don't know really. Whatever's in the racks, I suppose.
RICHARD THOMPSON plays Bogart's on Saturday with special guest Dave Alvin.
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