{"id":6461,"date":"2021-08-24T08:06:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T07:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=6461"},"modified":"2021-08-24T08:06:08","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T07:06:08","slug":"when-richard-thompson-planned-his-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2021\/08\/24\/when-richard-thompson-planned-his-party\/","title":{"rendered":"when RICHARD THOMPSON planned his party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

when RICHARD THOMPSON planned his party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Norman Warwick <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Richard Thompson, (left)<\/em><\/strong> who doesn\u00b4t touch coffee or alcohol, was instead drinking mint tea in a Hampstead coffee shop and was discussing, between two of his favourite topics, Islam and cricket, the remarkable guest list for his upcoming\u00a070th birthday celebration at the Royal Albert Hall<\/a>\u00a0in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I don\u2019t like being the centre of attention, strange as it sounds\u00b4,<\/em> he insisted. \u00b4I just want to have a few friends over.\u00b4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man the LA Times once hailed as \u00b4the finest rock songwriter after Dylan\u00b4 and \u00b4the best electric guitarist since Hendrix\u00b4 was expecting to switch between electric and acoustic guitars in his set, but was also hoping that \u00b4most guests will have time to do a couple of songs\u00b4. The fifteen guests will include Pink Floyd hero David Gilmour<\/a>, who has featured alongside Richard in a Rolling Stone magazine best ever guitarist list, and who, as a soloist, covered Richard\u2019s 1975<\/a> <\/strong><\/a>song Dimming of the Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4He\u2019ll do that\u00b4,<\/em> Richard told Robin Denselow, the journalist he was lunching with, who would have the interview carried by the Guardian on 30th<\/sup> September 2019.  \u00b4And then do something of his \u2026 or Floyd\u2019s. He has always been a nice guy and we share a love of all things Fender\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The cast will also include old and new British folk heroes, from father and daughter folk royalty,\u00a0Martin and Eliza Carthy<\/a>\u00a0(right)<\/em><\/strong> to\u00a0Olivia Chaney<\/a>. And then there will be\u00a0Harry Shearer<\/a>, the American actor and comedian, reviving his role as Derek Smalls from\u00a0Spinal Tap<\/a>, along with his wife\u00a0Judith Owen<\/a>\u00a0who joined Richard in 2006 for the\u00a01,000 Years of Popular Music<\/a>\u00a0project, in which they re-worked anything from Sumer Is Icumen In to Britney Spears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Thompson may be a virtuoso guitarist, but he insists that it\u2019s the songs that are most important to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Most of what I do revolves around the song. If I play guitar, I\u2019m not interested in playing instrumentals. I like playing guitar to accompany a voice, or if there is a solo, then extending the narrative of the song.\u00b4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So his interviewer asks whether his thrilling, spontaneous-sounding acoustic or electric guitar solos inspired by the song that houses them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Yes, it\u2019s that way round. Absolutely\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than 50 years, his song-writing output has been remarkable, from the gently bleak and lyrical ballads that are performed regularly in folk clubs (where some listeners probably think they are traditional) through to equally bleak, upbeat favourites like Tear-Stained Letter<\/a> or the pounding, edgy and emotional stories of foreboding on his latest electric album, 13 Rivers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an album filled with religious imagery,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4because I love the King James Bible<\/a>, a beautiful piece of poetry, and you have to speak to people in a language that\u2019s familiar\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it was written, he says, \u00b4in a difficult personal time. \u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The previous, after the ending of his second marriage, to Nancy Covey, he quit California to move to New Jersey, home of his new partner, singer-songwriter and author Zara Phillips<\/a>. But he insists that the album is not autobiographical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I have no perspective on what I am doing. I write a song and think, \u2018Where does this come from?\u2019 Me? I wrote this? I write fiction \u2026 I\u2019m just enjoying myself, throwing lines together. I think it always reflects your own experience and feelings, but it isn\u2019t always in a way that\u2019s clear. If you find something honest enough in yourself then it will be universal\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But The Storm Won\u2019t Come \u2013 \u00b4There\u2019s a smell of death where I lay my head\u00b4,,, is surely about his divorce, prompts his interviewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4But you\u2019ve also got Trump in the White House, so maybe there\u2019s a little bit of that in there as well\u00b4, is the response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 And Her Love Was Meant For Me, isn\u2019t that straightforward?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4It\u2019s a song I find very confusing, actually\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

the stranglers Looking ahead, Richard insisted that the Albert Hall birthday show would notbe a retrospective, though he conceded it would certainly be nostalgic. Another guest will be\u00a0Hugh Cornwell<\/a> (left)<\/em><\/strong> , of Stranglers fame, who played with Richard in his first band, Emil & the Detectives, when they were both 14 and pupils at William Ellis school near Hampstead Heath. Then there will\u00a0Simon Nicol<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Ashley Hutchings<\/a>, who along with Richard were the core trio in different teenage bands who evolved into the first Fairport Convention. They would be joined by\u00a0Dave Mattacks<\/a>, the drummer who joined Fairport a little later, alongside the late\u00a0Sandy Denny<\/a>, to record\u00a0Liege and Lief<\/a>, the classic album released now more than fifty years ago that kick-started British folk-rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4We might dip our toe into that repertoire\u00b4,<\/em> Thompson teased. \u00b4And someone is going to do a bit of Sandy\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how did he feel about that era now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4We thought that if we are in the charts and it\u2019s taken seriously, it could change peoples\u2019 attitudes to British music and you might have people stopping using American accents when singing. It was totally revolutionary at the time. Rock music with an element of British traditional music in it was pretty much our innovation, and I\u2019m very proud of that. And when people in other countries saw we did, it was possible for them to contemporise their own cultures\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After the Fairports, Richard recorded a serious of glorious, mostly bleak albums with his first wife\u00a0Linda Thompson<\/a>, (right)<\/em><\/strong> a powerful, evocative singer whose career has been marred by dysphonia, a larynx disorder that makes it increasingly difficult for her to sing. She had confirmed she would be \u00a0at the birthday party, along with their musical children, singer-songwriter and producer\u00a0Teddy Thompson<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Kami Thompson, who works with her husband, the Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne, in the Rails<\/a>. And to complete the family line-up there will also be in attendance Richard\u2019s new partner Zara Phillips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how would Linda feel if Zara sings one of the Richard and Linda classics such as I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight<\/a> or Wall of Death<\/a>, as seemed likely?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4It wouldn\u2019t seem odd\u00b4, had reportedly been Linda\u00b4s response in the days approaching the event. \u00b4If it were Richard and Emmylou Harris<\/a> I might be a bit miffed, because she is a genius! And I like Zara. And Richard has changed a lot. He is much nicer and he\u2019s happy \u2013 so that\u2019s great\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was during his marriage to Linda that Richard discovered Islam. The son of a Scottish policeman, he was brought up as a Presbyterian<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4which I was not interested in. I became a Muslim when I was 23 and have been one ever since\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He discovered Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, after visiting \u00b4<\/em>a very old esoteric bookshop, Watkins in Covent Garden<\/em><\/a>, and started reading about it\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On the cover of their 1975 album\u00a0Pour Down Like Silver,<\/a>\u00a0he and Linda are dressed in turban and headscarf, and for the next three years the couple disappeared from the music scene to spend much of their time in Islamic communities in London and then Norfolk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4And it was a community, not a commune,\u00b4<\/em> said Richard. \u00b4Commune implies sharing out the carrots!\u00b4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linda hated it. \u201cSufism had appealed to me, but the guy who ran it was bit of a tyrant. There was lots of praying and guilt, and women were so subservient.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard, who was attracted to Sufism by \u00b4the nobility of being \u2026 it seemed like the way human being should be\u00b4,<\/em> agreed that it wasn\u2019t ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4It was full of human foibles. People are lustful, jealous, God knows what. But then we visited a sheikh in Morocco and saw the other side of it. And it was all wonderful\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1982 the marriage was at an end, but the deserved success of the Shoot Out The Lights<\/a> album led to an infamous US tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u00b4I was living on booze and antidepressants\u00b4,  Linda has said.. \u00b4I was so angry I was kicking and hitting Richard on stage. I trashed a dressing room, stole a car and got arrested. But it was good for my voice. I guess because I was so heartbroken it freed me up. The dysphonia wasn\u2019t too bad in those days. At the end of the tour Richard rang and said: \u2018Bruce Springsteen is male singer of the year and you are female singer of the year.\u2019 Was it in Time or Rolling Stone? I think both. Like everything, good comes out of bad.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So has she forgiven him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I have. It was a bad time but \u2013 Jesus Christ \u2013 it was 40 years ago. Forget it!\u00b4 But she was \u00b4kind of dreading the Albert Hall\u00b4 because \u00b4as a performer you\u2019d love to get up and wow the crowd, but I never know what will come out of my mouth. But I\u2019ll do something. It\u2019s going to be good.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the split from Linda, Richard moved to California, remarried, and re-launched his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4At aged 33, when I started singing solo, they treated me as a new artist and put me on college radio. So my audience in the States was 10 years younger than me, and it still is. And very, very slowly I did well. It was word of mouth. I toured America relentlessly, and I still do, and it\u2019s still growing, which is amazing. Without having a hit record, more people come to shows now than they ever did.\u201d As for the move to the east coast, \u201cI was ready for a change. But being a performing musician I do 100 shows a year, and I\u2019m away 150 days, so where you are based is less important\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did he have problems as a Muslim living in the States in what was then the Trump era?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Trump has ramped up bigotry considerably. If you are not a white Christian, the implication is that you\u2019re not a real American. It\u2019s incredibly destructive, divisive, and harmful. We\u2019ll see how it plays out \u2013 but the fact is that you still have more religious freedom in America or Britain than you do in a whole lot of Middle Eastern countries.\u00b4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thompson is a cricket enthusiast \u2013 he cheerfully recalls an appearance on Test Match Special<\/a> five years before this interview took place, singing 1952 Vincent Black Lightning \u2013 and he was adamant he \u00b4never wanted to be culturally absorbed by America. I can contribute more having a culturally British point of view\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, lots of optimism was evident in those weeks approaching that seventieth birthday bash, but how did it all go in the end? Join us tomorrow to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was totally revolutionary at the time. Rock music with an element of British traditional music in it was pretty much our innovation, and I\u2019m very proud of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6468,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461\/revisions\/6468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}