Richard Thompson (musician)
Richard Thompson OBE (born 3 April 1949) is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist.[3]
For other people named Richard Thompson, see Richard Thompson (disambiguation).
Richard Thompson
Richard John Thompson
3 April 1949
Notting Hill, London, England
- Singer
- songwriter
- musician
- Vocals
- guitar
1967–present
- Fairport Convention
- The Bunch
- The GP's
Teddy Thompson (son)
Kamila Thompson (daughter)
Zak Hobbs (grandson)
Thompson first gained prominence in the late 1960s as the lead guitarist and songwriter for the folk rock group Fairport Convention, which he had co-founded in 1967. After departing the group in 1971, Thompson released his debut solo album Henry the Human Fly in 1972. The next year, he formed a duo with his wife Linda Thompson, which produced six albums, including the critically acclaimed I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (1974) and Shoot Out the Lights (1982). After the dissolution of the duo, Thompson revived his solo career with the release of Hand of Kindness in 1983. He has released eighteen solo studio albums. Three of his albums—Rumor and Sigh (1991), You? Me? Us? (1996), and Dream Attic (2010)—have been nominated for Grammy Awards,[4] while Still (2015) was his first UK Top Ten album. He continues to write and record new material and has frequently performed at venues throughout the world, although the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to suspend his touring.
Music critic Neil McCormick described Thompson as "a versatile virtuoso guitarist and a sharp observational singer-songwriter whose work burns with intelligence and dark emotion".[5] His songwriting has earned him an Ivor Novello Award[6] and, in 2006, a lifetime achievement award from BBC Radio.[6][7] His 1991 song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" was included in Time magazine's "All-TIME 100 Songs" list of the best English-language musical compositions released between 1923 and 2011.[8] Thompson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to music.[9] Many varied musicians have recorded Thompson's compositions.[10][11]
In 2021, his book Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice, 1967–1975 was published, mainly a memoir of his life as a musician from 1967 to 1975.
1970s: Richard and Linda Thompson[edit]
By the 1970s, Thompson had begun a relationship with the singer Linda Peters, who had sung on Henry the Human Fly. In October 1972 the couple were married at Hampstead Town Hall and honeymooned in Corsica.[28][29] Thompson, with Linda now effectively his front woman, regrouped for his next album and the next phase of his career.
The first Richard and Linda Thompson album, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, was recorded in May 1973 in short time and on a small budget. Largely because of the petrol shortage in Britain and its impact on the availability of vinyl for records, Bright Lights was held back by Island Records for nearly a year before being released in April 1974. The album was well received by critics, though sales were less than stellar.
Thompson's lyrics expressed a rather dismal world view, and it has been suggested that the bleak subject matter of his songs helped to keep his recordings off the hit parade. A more likely explanation was given by ex-Island A&R man Richard Williams in the 2003 BBC TV documentary Solitary Life: Thompson was just not interested in fame and its trappings.[21]
The Thompsons recorded two more albums—Hokey Pokey and Pour Down Like Silver, both released in 1975—before Richard Thompson decided to leave the music business. The couple moved to a Sufi community in East Anglia.
It was not apparent from their records at first, but the Thompsons had embraced an esoteric Sufi strand of Islam in early 1974.[30] I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight was recorded before this conversion, but released some time afterwards. The songs for the second Richard and Linda album, Hokey Pokey, were similarly written some time ahead of the album's recording and eventual release. It was Pour Down Like Silver, with its cover photo of a turbaned Richard Thompson, that tipped the public off to the Thompsons' growing preoccupation with their faith.
The trilogy of albums released before and after his sojourn in the commune was heavily influenced by Thompson's beliefs and by Sufi scripture, but in the long run his religious beliefs have not influenced his work in an obvious manner. The outlook expressed in his songs, his musical style, the subjects addressed by his lyrics have not shown any fundamental change.[31] He remains a committed Muslim.[21]
Thompson started to re-engage with the world of professional music in 1977. He played on an album by Sandy Denny, and had undertaken a short tour and started recording with a group of musicians who were also Sufis. Thompson asked Joe Boyd to produce these sessions, and two days were spent on the initial recordings. Boyd recalls that the sessions were not a success: "It was really, I felt, very poor. I didn't have much confidence in the musicians that he was working with. The atmosphere was very strange and it just didn't seem to work."[32]
At about this time the Thompsons and their family moved out of the commune and back to their old home in Hampstead.[33] Boyd had already invited Richard Thompson to play on Julie Covington's debut album. With spare studio time and the American session musicians hired to work on the Covington album available, the Thompsons went back into the studio to record under their own name for the first time in three years.
The resulting album, First Light, was warmly received by critics[21] but did not sell particularly well. Neither did its follow up, 1979's harder-edged and more cynical Sunnyvista. Chrysalis Records did not take up their option to renew the contract, and the Thompsons found themselves without one.
1990s[edit]
Thompson contributed music to BBC Northwest's documentary Hard Cash and appears on the eponymous accompanying album issued by Topic. A track from the album, Time To Ring Some Changes is included in the 2009 Topic Records 70-year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten as track thirteen on the sixth CD.
Thompson appears on Willie Nile's 1991 Places I Have Never Been album.
In 1991, Thompson recorded Rumor and Sigh, his second album for Capitol. Once again Froom produced. This album, particularly the acoustic guitar ballad "1952 Vincent Black Lightning", was hailed by critics and fans alike and greatly advanced Thompson's reputation as a leading traditional-style guitarist.[47]
Rumor and Sigh was nominated for a Grammy and sold well. However, a shake-up at Capitol saw Hale Milgrim (Thompson's champion and fan within the boardroom) replaced by Garry Gersh. Thus, Thompson's next album Mirror Blue was held back for almost a year before being released.
Thompson was awarded the Orville H. Gibson Award for best acoustic guitar player in 1997.[6][48]
In 1992, he performed with David Byrne. Their joint acoustic concert at St. Ann & The Holy Trinity in Brooklyn Heights, New York on 24 March, produced the album An Acoustic Evening, which was released the same year.[49]
Mirror Blue was released in 1994, to often negative reviews sparked by the production decisions that Thompson and Froom took. Thompson took to the road to promote the album. He was joined by drummer Dave Mattacks, Danny Thompson (no relation) on double bass, and Pete Zorn on acoustic guitar, backing vocals, mandolin and various wind instruments. This line-up toured with Thompson the following two years.
Thompson continued recording for Capitol until 1999, when Mock Tudor was recorded and released. His deal with Capitol was modified so that he could release and directly market limited-quantity, live recorded, not-for-retail albums. The first of these was Live at Crawley, released in 1995.
2020s[edit]
In 2021 his book Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice, 1967–1975 was published by Algonquin Books, mainly a memoir of his life as a musician from 1967 to 1975.[70]
Thompson performed on the acoustic stage of the Glastonbury Festival in June 2023.[71] Reviewing the set for The Guardian, Keza MacDonald said, "It's just him and a beautiful, bright-sounding acoustic guitar. He plays so well that you can't take your eyes off his picking hand, as you try to figure out how he's making the sound of three guitars come out of one. He is one of the most stunningly gifted guitarists you'll ever see live, and his dextrously fingerpicked mid-song diversions prompt claps and whoops from a crowd that is otherwise quietly reverent."[72]
In January 2024 Thompson announced a band tour of the U.S. and U.K., with the British leg culminating in a date at London's Royal Albert Hall on 8 June.[73][74] Ship to Shore was released that May. Reviewing the concert at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall for The Times, Peter Ross awarded the gig four stars and said, "There were flashes of brilliance, however. "Guns Are the Tongues", with Hobbs on mandolin, built over seven minutes to an ecstatic darkness. "Dimming of the Day" had a gentle grace. Best of all was "Beeswing", which Thompson performed alone, fingerpicking an acoustic. Intricate and soulful, it’s a song in which his technical ability and poetic voice are held in balance. The brief silence that followed said more than any applause could; we knew we’d heard something exquisite."[75] The final night, at the Royal Albert Hall, featured guest artists including Ralph McTell, James Walbourne, Kami Thompson, Linda Thompson, Squeeze and Crowded House.[76][77]
Retrospectives and tributes[edit]
There are a number of retrospective collections of Thompson's work, many containing material which is unavailable elsewhere. 1976's (guitar, vocal) was a collection of unreleased material from the previous eight years of Thompson's appearances on the Island label. The 3-CD set Watching the Dark combines his better-known songs and previously unreleased live and studio tracks. Action Packed is a compilation of tracks from his Capitol releases, plus three hard-to-find songs. Finally, in 2006, the independent label Free Reed released RT- The Life and Music of Richard Thompson, a 5-CD box set consisting almost entirely of previously unreleased performances of songs from throughout Thompson's long career.
Thompson's songs have been extensively covered; for example, Dimming of the Day has been performed by artists such as The Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, David Gilmour, The Blind Boys of Alabama, June Tabor, The Corrs and Alison Krauss and Union Station. There have been several tribute compilations of other artists' interpretations of his work, including: Capitol's Beat the Retreat: Songs by Richard Thompson and Green Linnet's The World Is a Wonderful Place: The Songs of Richard Thompson, both released in 1994.
Playing style[edit]
Thompson makes use of the "pick and fingers" technique (sometimes referred to as "hybrid picking") where he plays bass notes and rhythm with a pick between his first finger and thumb, and adds melody and punctuation by plucking the treble strings with his fingers. He also makes use of different guitar tunings, such as (low to high) CGDGBE, DADGBE, DADGAD, and more. This enables him to adapt traditional songs, as on Strict Tempo! and 1000 Years of Popular Music. Thompson occasionally makes use of a thumb-pick, playing in fingerstyle, the most notable example being on the motorcycle ballad "1952 Vincent Black Lightning".
Guitars[edit]
Electric[edit]
Thompson is often associated with the Fender Stratocaster guitar. He has made prominent use of Stratocasters, as he has a general preference for the sound of single coil pick-ups.
Personal life[edit]
In the early 1970s, Thompson began a relationship with the singer Linda Peters, who sang on Thompson's album Henry the Human Fly. In October 1972 the couple were married at Hampstead Town Hall.[86] As "Richard & Linda Thompson", the couple released six studio albums between 1974 and 1982. Their children include Teddy Thompson and Kamila Thompson. Richard and Linda Thompson separated in 1982.
Thompson married Nancy Covey in 1985, and was with Covey until they separated in 2018.[87] Thompson and Covey have a son, Jack Covey Thompson, a musician and visual artist who lives in London and has recorded with Henry Kaiser, Cuban musician Yelfris Valdez, and the Thompson family.[88]
In 2024 his touring band for the album Ship to Shore included Thompson's grandson Zak Hobbs.[89]
Richard Thompson lives in New Jersey with his wife, author, actor, singer and songwriter Zara Philips.[87][90]
