{"id":3219,"date":"2011-08-09T02:37:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T09:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3219"},"modified":"2011-08-09T02:39:09","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T09:39:09","slug":"richard-thompson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/richard-thompson\/","title":{"rendered":"RICHARD THOMPSON"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

RICHARD THOMPSON<\/h1>\n

An eclectic guitar slinger continues a four-decade journey through music <\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Bob Cannon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the course of his long career, Richard Thompson has become accustomed to hearing fans tell him they prefer the live versions of his songs over the studio takes. So for his latest album, Dream Attic<\/em>, Thompson elected to cut out the middleman\u2014all 13 songs were recorded live during a two-week American tour last February. \u201cWe basically chop out the studio process and go straight to live,\u201d he says. \u201cNo overdubs, not a great deal of post-production on the record. It\u2019s just as was played.\u201d While the album accomplished Thompson\u2019s goal of capturing the onstage energy generated by himself and his band, another goal remained stubbornly out of reach. \u201cWe were also thinking that it\u2019s probably cheaper to record on the road,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cBut it cost almost exactly the same amount!\u201d<\/p>\n

Cutting an album of brand-new songs live in front of audiences is only the latest twist in a musical journey that has included more than its fair share of unexpected adventures. The 61-year-old London native helped to found the venerated folk group Fairport Convention while still in his teens. Upon leaving the group in 1971, Thompson cut a series of seminal folk-rock collections with then-wife Linda Thompson, including 1982\u2019s landmark Shoot Out the Lights<\/em>. Following their personal and professional split, Thompson established himself as a solo act\u2014proving to be a relentlessly creative instrumentalist as well as a top-notch songwriter whose tunes have been covered by the likes of Bonnie Raitt, R.E.M.\u00a0and Robert Plant.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year Thompson premiered Cabaret of Souls<\/em>, an ambitious extended orchestral song cycle that he spent a year and a half working on. We caught up with Thompson between shows on his current tour to discuss his constantly expanding\u00a0body of work.<\/p>\n

What do you believe is your primary role as a guitarist?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I see myself as an accompanist. What I\u00a0do is usually accompanying a vocal, either my own or somebody else\u2019s. If I play a\u00a0solo, I\u2019m really trying to extend the mood or the narrative of a song. There are a lot of guitar players I admire, but I don\u2019t like to compare them. I don\u2019t like to say, \u201cChet\u00a0Atkins is a better guitarist than Jeff Beck,\u201d because at some point it all breaks down. Like, is Joe Satriani better than Andres Segovia? I mean, are they even playing the same instrument? Hardly! Lists are fine, and on my website it says, \u201cNamed by Rolling Stone<\/em> magazine as one of the Top 20 guitarists of all time.\u201d I\u2019ll exploit that, thank you very much indeed. But do I take it seriously? Absolutely not.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does this album have a theme?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, it doesn\u2019t. There is something about when you write songs in a short period of time\u2014they seem to have a fraternal relationship. They seem to relate to each other. Records like Sgt. Pepper<\/em> don\u2019t really have a theme, but because the songs are written at a certain time you get the zeitgeist of Sgt. Pepper<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Your songs are very dark. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a songwriter you have to express the highs and lows\u2014and that\u2019s some of the more interesting stuff that you\u2019re ever going to write. It\u2019s a place you go to, but not necessarily the place where you live. And it\u2019s important to show that to the listener as a kind of shared experience.<\/p>\n

Where does that impulse come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was probably a strange child. My father used to correspond with a playwright friend in New York, and they\u2019d send each other books on criminology. Quite bizarre, really. So there\u2019s a shelf of that, and I used to pick up those and find them quite gripping. Then there was a shelf of Scottish poets and ballads, books of traditional ballads. There you had people being murdered and carried off by the fairies\u2014different kinds of criminal activity, but more historical.<\/p>\n

I suppose it\u2019s the combination of the two that permanently scarred me. One of the reasons we like detective fiction is that people are more interesting when they\u2019re under pressure, when they\u2019re in extreme situations. Someone commits a murder, and how they deal with it is very revealing about their nature. People like that\u00a0good-versus-evil thing.<\/p>\n

Are you ever concerned that people will confuse you with your characters?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope so! That\u2019s the highest praise. Randy Newman\u2019s satire was so good that people took it seriously. The satire in This Is Spinal Tap<\/em> was so good that some actually thought it was a real documentary. The closer you get the better, as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\n

Do you ever feel trapped by the expectations of your audience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

First of all, you are an entertainer. This is the job you choose to do. At one end you can call it art with a small \u201ca,\u201d but at the other end it really is entertainment. So you can aspire to be clever and tricky and a genius, et cetera, but you still have to get out there on stage and play to people in a way that they\u2019re not going to fall asleep or start throwing stuff at you. (laughs<\/em>) So a live show or a record is a balancing act between what you want to do and what the audience wants to hear\u2014and an audience is by nature a conservative body. It wants to hear the stuff it already knows. But you can\u2019t sit back and just play the familiar material, because the audience will\u00a0start to fade away.<\/p>\n

Are there songs you have<\/em> to play?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most nights I have to play \u201c1952 Vincent Black Lightning\u201d and I have to play \u201cBeeswing.\u201d A couple of ballads,\u00a0which is interesting.<\/p>\n

Is it hard to introduce new songs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found over the years that the audience has come to expect that. The audience now challenges me back and says, \u201cYou didn\u2019t play any new songs tonight.\u00a0What\u2019s going on?\u201d Often with a live show you\u2019ll think, \u201cHere\u2019s 50 percent songs that I think people would like to hear. These seem to be popular songs. And then the other\u00a050 percent is what I would like to thrust upon the audience. Here\u2019s some newer stuff. Here\u2019s some weirder stuff. I think the audience, on balance, will be able\u00a0to absorb these.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s an acceptable level of fame? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice to have some anonymity. To be famous is a curse that people wish\u00a0upon themselves, then probably regret\u00a0immediately if it happens to them. I like\u00a0the fact that I can play festivals, I can play in fairly large theaters, but I can also\u00a0sometimes play in a club that holds\u00a0100 people. I love that intimacy. Also I\u00a0love the change in the size of the\u00a0audience, and adjusting to that all\u00a0the time. The variety is great, and I\u2019d hate to lose that. I\u2019d hate to become so famous that I couldn\u2019t play\u00a0anything under 50,000. That would be terrible, and I\u2019d be crying all the way to the\u00a0bank. (laughs<\/em>) To be someone who just does\u00a0stadiums all the time, that must be deeply,\u00a0deeply boring. You can\u2019t change the\u00a0show at all.<\/p>\n

Do you ever try for hits? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Not really, no. I don\u2019t think in marketing\u00a0terms. I don\u2019t have that kind of brain, unfortunately. If only I did, that\u2019d be great! I\u2019m just trying to make records that I\u00a0think are good. The thinking is that if\u00a0you make a good record, then more people will listen to it. Be true to yourself, put out some things that you\u2019re proud of, and perhaps people will like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RICHARD THOMPSON An eclectic guitar slinger continues a four-decade journey through music By Bob Cannon Over the course of his long career, Richard Thompson has become accustomed to hearing fans tell him they prefer the live versions of his songs over the studio takes. So for his latest album, Dream Attic, Thompson elected to cut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[2314,1175,970,2331],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3219"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3222,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219\/revisions\/3222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}