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| Author |
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krj
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Richard Thompson
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Mar 14 21:25 UTC 1998 |
I'm surprised we've gone so long in this incarnation of the music
conference without a Richard Thompson item. I'll start this one
by mentioning that the next Thompson release, due out in mid-April,
will be THE BONES OF ALL MEN. The new album is a collaboration between
Thompson and early music specialist Phil Pickett, with the Fairport
Convention rhythm section.
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| 51 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 1 of 51:
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Mar 15 05:49 UTC 1998 |
Produced by someone other than Mitchell Froom, I hope? It's not as
if he's singlehandedly responsible for the last few RT releases, which
have been disappointing at best (who knows, maybe Thompson's happy with
them but they haven't been strong on the things that attracted me to
his music in the first place or the other qualities that I enjoy..) but
he certainly isn't helping -- I don't much like Froom's work with other
artists, either..
I'm not sure how much I can really look forward to another Richard Thompson
album -- although I thought "You? Me? Us?" was a definite improvement over
"Mirror Blue" it just seems to me like he's run out of things he really
wants to say. On the plus side, his live performances are still well
worth going to -- I was really pleasantly surprised by the show at the
Michigan Theater on the "You? Me? Us?" tour..
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anderyn
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response 2 of 51:
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Mar 18 03:41 UTC 1998 |
Oh YES. New Richard Thompson.
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krj
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response 3 of 51:
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Apr 7 04:46 UTC 1998 |
News on the RT mailing list is that the disc is now being billed
as a Philip Pickett CD, with Thompson in a supporting role, rather than
the Pickett/Thompson collaboration which we were originally promised.
Leslie and I are big Phil Pickett fans, so we'll buy the album today
anyway. Others of you may wish to wait a bit.
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krj
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response 4 of 51:
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Apr 23 10:31 UTC 1998 |
Well, I still don't have much conclusive to offer on THE BONES OF ALL MEN
cd. So far I'm lukewarm on it; Leslie likes it quite a bit, mostly
because of its early music nature. And I'd tell you more but the
disc seems to have gotten lost somewhere. :P
Just received in the mail: a flyer for this year's release by the
Richard Thompson fan club operation Flypaper. The album is titled
CELTSCHMERZ, recorded live in London this January. 11 of the 16
songs are oldies, which may bode well for those of use who haven't
liked Thompson's last couple of studio albums.
I believe this is mostly acoustic solo. The flyer says that
Richard's son Teddy Thompson appears on six tracks.
There are also some USA tour dates for Teddy Thompson as a solo
performer; he's playing in New York, and in the Boston area.
If you want to be on the mailing list for such flyers, write to:
Flypaper, J.A.F. Box 7095, New York, NY 10116.
Or, take a peek at http://www.thebeeskneees.com
and let me know if there's anything interesting there.
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mcnally
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response 5 of 51:
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Apr 23 16:17 UTC 1998 |
clever name for the fan club release..
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krj
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response 6 of 51:
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Apr 28 21:40 UTC 1998 |
The Richard Thompson mailing list distributed an interesting review of
a New York show by RT's son Teddy Thompson. Mom Linda T. sang along
with the soundcheck, and she tried to sing one of the old Richard &
Linda songs but her psycho-somatic (?) probably about singing in
front of crowds kicked in.
The reporter talked to Linda after the show. She was recording some work
for a solo (?) album by one of the Boys of the Lough; she has been
singing in some project with Pere Ubu's David Thomas.
This might be the closest thing to a Linda Thompson performance in the
States since she sang on the Grammy Awards show in the late 1980's.
It's nice to see her emerging from her shell, however tentatively.
(I guess I need to explain for the novices: Richard & Linda Thompson were
married from about 1972-1982; they recorded six albums which range from
"interesting" to "Best Album of All Time"; after the divorce Linda
issued one solo album in 1975 and then vanished from performing.)
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mcnally
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response 7 of 51:
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Apr 29 03:29 UTC 1998 |
"Best Album of All Time" might be overstating it a bit but their best
albums were very good.. I presume you're talking about "I Want To See
the Bright Lights Tonight" -- that's the one I'd recommend if asked to
pick a Richard & Linda Thompson album..
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krj
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response 8 of 51:
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Sep 15 22:35 UTC 1998 |
This weekend, the Richard Thompson mailing list had three reviews
of a concert Linda Thompson sang in New York with David Thomas
of Pere Ubu. Sounds like it was pretty avant-garde stuff.
I sent the reviews to Mike McNally, and I'll forward them to anyone
else interested; I'm not going to post them in the conference.
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mcnally
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response 9 of 51:
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Mar 16 04:31 UTC 1999 |
There's a long-ish article on Thompson this week in Salon Magazine
(www.salonmagazine.com) in their "Brilliant Careers" column.
Among other things, they make reference to an alleged April
release called "Mock Tudor". Any other info on that?
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krj
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response 10 of 51:
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Mar 16 08:26 UTC 1999 |
Thanks for the pointer to the Salon piece. I have not heard anything
about an April release; I seem to have gotten dropped from the
Richard Thompson mailing list about a month ago, alas.
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carla
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response 11 of 51:
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Mar 17 23:03 UTC 1999 |
I have Richard Thompson animated video for
"feel so good"
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krj
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response 12 of 51:
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Jun 9 21:06 UTC 1999 |
The dates are out for Richard Thompson's summer tour.
He's going to be at 7th House in Pontiac on June 22, according
to the semi-official website http://www.thebeesknees.com
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mcnally
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response 13 of 51:
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Jun 10 19:05 UTC 1999 |
Saw flyers for that show plastered all over campus area today, in fact..
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krj
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response 14 of 51:
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Jun 18 06:03 UTC 1999 |
We're going to pass on the Pontiac show. In part it's because we're
in trip panic mode with Leslie's summer singing program coming up;
in part it's that I just haven't felt particularly excited by anything
RT has recorded in the last five or six years. Ah well.
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krj
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response 15 of 51:
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Aug 9 21:19 UTC 1999 |
News from the semi-official Richard Thompson web page, at
http://www.amug.org/~deeg1225/RTnews.html
The US release date for RT's new album, MOCK TUDOR, is announced
to be August 24. New producers: Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, anyone
heard of them? The band is mostly Dave Mattacks, Danny Thompson no
relation, and Teddy Thompson, who is Richard & Linda's son.
There is also a nice interview from April on the page.
The page also says that RT is supposed to play all over Norma
Waterson's second solo album, THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU.
This lists in European catalogs but seems not to have
been released in the USA; perhaps Ryko is holding it for a
USA tour by Norma?
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mcnally
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response 16 of 51:
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Aug 10 16:53 UTC 1999 |
I have no idea who Tom Rothrock and Rob Scnapf are, but I'd lay big money
that I'll prefer them to Mitchell Froom..
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krj
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response 17 of 51:
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Sep 1 00:29 UTC 1999 |
Mike McNally e-mailed me about a Richard Thompson interview in Salon:
http://www.salonmagazine.com/ent/music/int/1999/08/31/thompson/index.html
And I can reciprocate with an interview I found:
http://www.sonicnet.com/news
and look at the "news archive" for August 30; the actual URL is
unmanagable. :(
We're giving the new album MOCK TUDOR its first spin, and it's not
instantly alienating like YOU ME US was.
(I'm not sure I ever listened to all of YOU ME US. I'm sure I never
listened to all of it twice.) Track 5, "Hard on Me," sounds like
a recapitulation of "Shoot Out The Lights."
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mcnally
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response 18 of 51:
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Sep 1 01:43 UTC 1999 |
As I've mentioned to Ken, I *liked* "You? Me? Us?" -- I thought it was
*MUCH* better than "Mirror Blue" (which I really, really, really disliked.)
I liked it about as well as "Rumour and Sigh" once I learned which tracks
to program around. I'd agree, though, that it doesn't compare with the
albums he released in his heyday..
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dbratman
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response 19 of 51:
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Sep 8 22:10 UTC 1999 |
What, exactly, _was_ RT's heyday, and does everyone agree on it?
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mcnally
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response 20 of 51:
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Sep 8 23:53 UTC 1999 |
There's plenty of room to debate the relative merits of his albums but
I'd say the standout is "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight".
However, in my opinion you could hardly go wrong with any of:
Shoot Out the Lights
Hand of Kindness
Across a Crowded Room
Small Town Romance
Henry the Human Fly
Pour Down Like Silver
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krj
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response 21 of 51:
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Sep 9 02:25 UTC 1999 |
Yeah, we mostly agree on that. Chronologically, RT's peaks would be
the beginning of his solo career and the earliest albums with Linda
(1971-1975) and then the end of his relationship with Linda and
his first post-divorce albums (1982-1986). And of course, the
Fairport Convention period, when RT was just a kid.
I'd add in RUMOR AND SIGH (1991) as a late flowering, and of course
he's not dead yet and still puts on a hell of a live show.
As long as I'm mentioning Fairport: A&M has just put out a new 2-CD
anthology of Fairport. The first disc covers the 3 Sandy Denny albums;
the second disc covers the last Richard Thompson album and then vaults
rapidly through the rest of the 1970s, about six albums sampled in half
a CD. An online CD dealer I use says it's remastered, but I haven't
confirmed that. Tracks from the LIEGE AND LIEF album have always
sounded muddy on every issue I've ever heard.
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mcnally
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response 22 of 51:
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Sep 9 02:42 UTC 1999 |
Hmmm.. I might be interested in that, although I already have
"What We Did on Our Holidays" and "Liege & Lief", which must make
up most of what's on the first disc. What's the third Fairport
album that has Sandy Denny on it? "Full House"?
As far as Richard Thompson goes, I also enjoyed "Rumour and Sigh"
but apparently less than Ken. I'd rank it among the best of his
lesser albums but not in the same league with the ones mentioned
in #20.
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krj
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response 23 of 51:
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Sep 9 03:45 UTC 1999 |
The third Fairport Convention album with Sandy Denny is UNHALFBRICKING.
Though it seems like a perfectly coherent masterwork, it's actually
a collection of studio scraps which producer Joe Boyd flung together
to get an album out in the wake of the band's van accident, which
killed their drummer and Thompson's girlfriend.
FULL HOUSE is the first post-Denny album, and the last one
with Thompson as a fulltime member.
The world used to move faster. The three Fairport albums with
Sandy Denny all came out in 1969. Denny and Hutchings quit in
early 1970; later that year Hutchings has Steeleye Span organized
and recording, and Fairport goes on to record FULL HOUSE.
In 1971, Thompson quits Fairport and gets his first solo album
out; two more Steeleye Span albums come out; Denny's probably
got her solo albums pouring out by then, though I would have
to look that up. And Fairport regroups and puts out ANGEL DELIGHT
with none of its star talents left.
So the Fairport gang gets something like 8-10 albums in three years,
almost all of them masterworks. Maybe those were just magical years.
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krj
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response 24 of 51:
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Oct 6 13:25 UTC 1999 |
A friend sends along e-mail from the Richard Thompson mailing list,
with rumors of a RT concert at the Ark for December 7th. Unconfirmed
as yet.
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