RT: The Life and Music of Richard Thompson

RT: The Life and Music of Richard Thompson Review

Look, I'm no Richard Thompson obsessive, I'm not an audiophile & I'm not a fan of box sets. All that aside, this is essential listening for Thompson admirers & fanatics alike. Where the "Watching The Dark" collection was designed for popular consumption---this one is for the fans.

If you have a tin ear & an attention span lasting longer than 30 seconds, you can't help but notice Richard Thompson is one of the finest and most versatile guitarists Rock ever produced. As a songwriter, he's up there with the idiosyncratic likes of Dylan, Tom Waits & Townes Van Zandt.

True, the book weighs more than the music & is written by a Fairport Convention devotee who has a tendency towards the trivial and pedantic. One gets the sense of an overexcited academic, who's note cards are out of order. Even the interview with Thompson is fairly unrevealing. Thompson mischeiviously pulls the carpet from under with the quote: "To give a definite explaination would spoil the fun". But you're not buying this for the book.

The music speaks for itself. The box is a generous trove of unreleased rarities both studio & live. There's also a free write in disc of others covering Thompson. Making it 6 discs in all.

Highlights certainly include, "Crazy Man Micheal", "Meet Me On The Ledge" & "Sloth"---all of which show their strenghts outside of Fairport Convention's musical anachronisms. Live versions of classics like "Calvary Cross", "Shoot Out The Lights" & "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" never disappoint. On the contrary, they go to show how jaw droppingly solid the songs are. Not to mention the performer.

But its the near out of print, live & lost material that will leave long time fans reeling. I'm talking about things like, "Ghosts In The Wind" & "Drowned Dog Black Night". Stunning workouts & guaranteed to raise the hair on your neck. On the flip side, the initmate acoustic rarities, "Josef Locke" & "Mrs. Rita" would only enhance any Thompson release.

As I said, I am not an audiophile. I wouldn't let sound quality stand in my way of enjoying the many pleasures of Robert Johnson or Charley Patton, not to mention the Harry Smith Folk Anthology. So yes, the sound quality is less than stellar on Thompson's home demos & ferocious but murky live recordings like, "Put It There Pal". But overall, the folks at Free Reed did a great job of dusting out the nooks & crannies.

In terms of the unreleased studio material, "Bad News Is All The Wind Can Carry" is as beautifully bleak as it gets. The fragment, "In Over Your Head" captures Thompson at his most vulnerable & questioning. Revealing to say the least. That's not to say that stuff like "Dragging The River", "Alexander Graham Bell" & "My Daddy Is A Mummy" aren't great infectious fun.

As for the covers disc highlighting Thompson's "1000 Years In Popluar Music"--- the likes of "Substitute" & "Tempted" are always welcome. Both are just as, if not more heartfelt than the originals. The conviction of his version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" serves only to mock his sarcastic stab at Britney Spears',"Oops! I Did It Again".

Great as Page, Beck, Hendrix, Clapton & Richards are---none have proved themselves to be as consistantly strong as Thompson in the songwriting department. The double threat Thompson so consitantly weilds often sets him apart.

Despite long standing critical acclaim, his low key personality, twisted sense of humor, and willingness to go to the "dark place" may have hampered him in terms of popular consumption. But Thompson's weathered through it all with his integrity intact. True, he always looked more like your High School History professor than a Byronic anti-hero. But perhaps, its Thompson's stubborn sense of "Englishness" that's kept him from American superstardom. Its something he makes no apology for & has never tried to bury. He has always remained loyal to his roots but has always dared venture far beyond the genre known as "Folk". So, look beyond the whims of fashion and find the unpretenious grit so many strive for. Its all here waiting for you.

RT: The Life and Music of Richard Thompson Overview

A 5-CD celebration of the life and music of Richard Thompson featuring: classic, rare and previously-unreleased recordings from his entire career. Comprising five themed CDs, over 90 tracks...

The set has been compiled with unprecedented access to Richard's own archives and major Thompson collectors worlwide. While it features the classic Richard Thompson songs, as well as recordings never heard before by even the most devoted of fans, the set is made up almost entirely of previously unreleased and extremely hard to find recordings.

RT: The Life and Music of Richard Thompson Specifications

For Richard Thompson fanatics (and those who admire the brilliant songwriter and virtuoso guitarist tend to be quite ardent about him), this five-disc set of obscurities, outtakes, live performances, and previously unreleased material is the holy grail. Earlier releases from Free Reed found the label mining the riches of British folk-rock from the likes of Fairport Convention (which featured Thompson in its most popular incarnation), but here they've hit the mother lode. This isn't the place for a newcomer to start with Thompson, as other "best-of" anthologies and career-spanning compilations might provide a better introduction. Instead, this is a treasure trove that will offer discovery for even the most devoted fan. Each disc has a theme--epic ballads, discarded songs, the essential canon--with the disc of cover versions particularly fascinating. From performance tapes, Thompson makes everything from the Who's "Substitute" and Squeeze's "Tempted" to the traditional "Danny Boy" and "Shenandoah" sound like his own. The expansive selection illuminates Thompson as an artist of great range and subtlety, humor and heart, from the intimacy of his solo acoustic performances to galvanizing, electrically charged renditions of masterpieces such as "Shoot Out the Lights," "For Shame of Doing Wrong," and "Calvary Cross." An accompanying 168-page book provides biographical context and exhaustive annotation (though somehows seem to tag "Shoot Out the Lights" as solo acoustic when it's plainly full-band electric). --Don McLeese

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Mar 30, 2010 23:45:07