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RICHARD THOMPSON<\/h1>\nRICHARD THOMPSON<\/h1>\nThe British folk-rock hero makes an Americana connection on his latest<\/b><\/p>\n
Richard Thompson is not content to stay in one musical place. Since the 1960s, when his ace guitar skills led Fairport Convention into the rarified league of groundbreaking musicians who invented British folk rock, he\u2019s been something of a human prism, shifting and turning his talents to spotlight musical beauty\u2014sometimes in the unlikeliest of places, as when he chose to cover Britney Spears\u2019 \u201cOops!…I Did It Again,\u201d for a live album in 2003. Tapping Nashville veteran Buddy Miller to helm his new album, Electric<\/i>, Thompson unabashedly amps up Americana and injects it with a healthy dose of Celtic sound.<\/p>\n
How did you approach the songwriting?<\/b><\/p>\n
In this case, I was interested to write for a trio. We had been doing some shows as a trio and I thought, \u201cThis is an interesting format.\u201d It\u2019s quite inspiring to plan things this way because with a trio you have to think differently, and different things occur to you.<\/p>\n
Do you write without an instrument?<\/b><\/p>\n
That\u2019s true\u2014sometimes I do write without an instrument, but I refer to an instrument from time to time. Sometimes when it\u2019s just in your head it\u2019s a bit freer. It\u2019s not so tied down to patterns that your fingers fall into. So you can imagine slightly beyond what you normally do, and at a later stage you can refer to an instrument and bring it down to earth more. It\u2019s like you\u2019re walking down the street, and there\u2019s a rhythm to walking, and you might get an idea that fits that rhythm. It\u2019s nice to keep it all floating in your own head for a while.<\/p>\n
Do you write one project at a time?<\/b><\/p>\n
More and more I write with specific projects in mind, but I have a few projects on the go all the time. I\u2019ll think, \u201cThis is a good song for that acoustic project,\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s a good one for the theater thing I was thinking of.\u201d So there are always a few choices where a song can be placed. But I do find that I am project-driven.<\/p>\n
Why choose Buddy Miller?<\/b><\/p>\n
I don\u2019t always hire producers. But I thought it would be interesting to look outside for this one and figured Buddy would be the most interesting person to work with. Of course, it meant taking the band and shipping all the gear to Nashville. But I believed it would be the right environment\u2014I\u2019d heard the albums Buddy recorded at his house, and there was a certain sensibility and atmosphere to them. It turned out to be a fantastic choice.<\/p>\n
What made it so desirable?<\/b><\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s a house, it\u2019s a relaxed atmosphere. He records on the ground floor and lives upstairs. So the drums were in one corner, and the tape machine was in another corner, and I\u2019m in the kitchen alcove with the coffee machine. It\u2019s all very cozy and low-key, more than what you can achieve in the studio. There is no red light, so you can drift into recording, and suddenly you\u2019ve done it.<\/p>\n
Was recording a long process?<\/b><\/p>\n
We recorded most of the songs in four days\u2014and then messed around for another week, doing a few things, trying to justify our existence.<\/p>\n
Do you enjoy playing older songs?<\/b><\/p>\n
There are some I can\u2019t relate to, songs I wrote when I was 18. I wasn\u2019t sure what I was doing when I wrote some of them in the first place. Still, it is nice to revisit some old songs.<\/p>\n
\u2013Nancy Dunham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RICHARD THOMPSON The British folk-rock hero makes an Americana connection on his latest Richard Thompson is not content to stay in one musical place. Since the 1960s, when his ace guitar skills led Fairport Convention into the rarified league of groundbreaking musicians who invented British folk rock, he\u2019s been something of a human prism, shifting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[6164,970,2331],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9321"}],"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=9321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9323,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9321\/revisions\/9323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}