MUSIC: Richard Thompson OBE

Liam Gallagher of the ploddingly predictable Oasis once complained in an interview that Britain had never produced a truly great guitarist. We can only hope that the award of an OBE to the legendary Richard Thompson will help highlight the fallacy of that statement.

The beret-sporting Thompson may be an obscure name to people outside the folk scene, where he is fondly remembered as the cornerstone of Fairport Convention in the late 1960s when his staggeringly adept electric guitar work dragged traditional songs like ‘Tam Lin’ and ‘Matty Groves’ kicking and screaming into the modern era. However, his work since leaving the band has proved just as influential beyond folk and has set the bar extremely high for both guitarists and songwriters of all stripes.

Things did not start so well for Thompson. His first solo album, Henry the Human Fly, achieved fame for being the worst selling album in Warner Music’s history – but a series of records with wife Linda Thompson cemented his reputation as one of the country’s finest musicians. Between 1974 and 1982, when the couple split after years of communal living put too much strain on the relationship, they recorded four albums for Island that are genuine classics which included songs such as the jaunty sing-along ‘I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight’; the morose ‘End of the Rainbow’ (which proved a big influence on a young Elvis Costello and has been labelled as one of the most depressing songs of all time); and the unintentionally controversial ‘Hokey Pokey’, which was banned by Radio One. For all the plaudits heaped on the likes of Bob Dylan and Neil Young for their work over the same period, few songs can hold a candle to heart-breaking numbers ‘Down Where the Drunkards Roll’, ‘A Heart Needs a Home’ and ‘Withered and Died’, while the epic ‘The Calvary Cross’ showcased Thompson’s inventive and distinctive fretwork.

Yet it was ‘Shoot Out the Lights’ – one of the rawest break-up records every recorded – that propelled Thompson further beyond his folk roots and created a wave in America, where he still lives today. It set the tone for a more pop-centric tone of his albums during the 1980s and 1990s, where his guitar work and lugubrious voice came to the fore. 1991’s Rumor and Sigh (note the US spelling) is generally considered to be his masterpiece, particularly as it contains ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’ (a tragic love song based around a classic motorcycle that features a mind-bendingly fast picked chord progression that has to be heard to be believed), which is now synonymous with his work, but ‘Beeswing’ from Mirror Blue also puts most balladeers to shame in the song-writing stakes.
 
His ability to switch between caustic and critical lyrics to tear-jerking tragic tales should also be highlighted. Mirror Blue, the album I fell for as a teenager, sees the beautiful ‘King of Bohemia’ and virtually suicidal ‘Taking My Business Elsewhere’ comfortably sit alongside the biting lyrics of ‘The Way That It Shows’, in which he accuses a lover of ‘whispered sweet nothings (that) all sound like expenses’.

Thompson is no slouch either and at the age of 61 refuses to rest on his laurels. His latest album, Dream Attic, was recorded live and is genuinely different in style and content to anything else he has produced. His status as one of the world’s great songwriters was cemented when Del McCoury won industry awards for his bluegrass cover of ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’ in 2002, while the Beat the Retreat tribute album gave American Thompson fans like REM, Bob Mould, Dinosaur Jr and David Byrne a chance put the songs through their paces with great success.

His solo work showcases a wide array of styles, all with guitar playing as distinctive as his beret, but it is as a live performer that Thompson truly shines. With no need for the sort of electronic effects that turn a simple riff into a stadium-filling extravaganza for the likes of Muse, Thompson effortlessly performs the most intricate of songs with an unnerving casualness. It’s also live that his sense of humour comes to the fore and belies the somewhat curmudgeonly sound of some of his mournful songs.

He revived the outstanding 1000 Years of Popular Music show for this year’s Meltdown festival, which he curated, and proved he could turn his hand to 1000-year-old folk songs, operettas, music hall numbers and 1930s jazz with ease. He even succeeded in convincing the most hardened folk music snob that Britney Spears’s ‘Oops I Did It Again’ can scrub up brilliantly if you include a middle eight that sounds more like a pavane. He is also one of the few musicians who can take to the stage with a hurdy gurdy and play it with aplomb (take note Arcade Fire).

The OBE will further restore Richard Thompson’s status at the top table of British musical heroes as a folk revolutionary, one of the world’s greatest guitarists, a must-see performer and one of the finest songwriters this country has ever produced.

Song list:
1952 Vincent Black Lightning
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
A Heart Needs a Home
Beat the Retreat
I Feel So Good
I Misunderstood
Beeswing
Persuasion
Shoot Out the Lights
Fire In the Engine Room
The Cavalry Cross
The End of the Rainbow
Tam Lin
Farewell Farewell
Needle and Thread
Oops I Did It Again
 
Nic Fildes writes on telecoms and technology for The Times, and proudly identifies himself as ‘an arch music snob’. You can follow him on Twitter HERE

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