Welcome to my blog about the music that I enjoy. I have been cluttering up my Facebook page with music clips from YouTube, but that is fleeting, and I felt I wanted somewhere with more 'wriggle room'. And so, here we are!
I'm starting with one of may favourite singer/songwriters, the great Richard Thompson. He's been around for years, making his first professional appearance as a gangly 18-year-old lead guitarist with Fairport Convention 1n 1967, and he stayed with them for four years and four albums, writing more and more of the band's material, including 'Meet on the Ledge'.
He left Fairport to pursue his own interests, and released an album called 'Henry the Human Fly', which was critically panned and commercially unsuccessful. With his new wife Linda, he embarked on a series of albums on which he accompanied Linda as she interpreted his material.
Richard & Linda Thompson - Just The Motion... by clnhnsn67
During this time, Richard and Linda Thompson both converted to Sufi Islam, and much of their material acquired a mystical quality. RT is still a devout Muslim, but it seems to have had less obvious influence on his writing in recent years. By 1982, the Thompsons' relationship seems to have reached a nadir, but the resulting tensions made their last album, 'Shoot Out the Lights', their strongest yet.
Walking on a Wire - 1982
Working solo again, RT released 'Hand of Kindness' - upbeat and fairly 'rocky' in 1883, and followed that in 1985 with 'Across a Crowded Room', which I feel is his first reall top-notch album, with lyrical references to Margaret Thatcher's England, the Koran, 'South Pacific and the Moors Murders. It also contains some cracking songs :
When the Spell is Broken - 1985
"Love letters you wrote / get stuffed back down your throat / and leave you choking / when the spell is broken"
Nobody does this kind of material - hurt, anger, bitterness, resentment or loss, tenderness and regret better than RT.
More later.
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