Richard Thompson
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Richard Thompson: Hand Of Kindness
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 30 July 1983
From a maker of acclaimed albums, something that is more of the same, as dependable as any itching in the heart, toothache, telephone bill: it ...
Interview by Joe Matera, Australian Musician, Spring 2003
HE'S ALREADY ACHIEVED more as a songwriter and instrumentalist than most musicians could do in a lifetime. His sound is familiar, with ties to practically ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, December 1988
Richard Thompson talks to Mat Snow about growing up in North London, learning guitar and forming Fairport Convention. Along the way he meets Sandy Denny and Joe Boyd...
File format: mp3 File size: 85.7mb, interview length: 1h 29' 15", sound quality: ***
List of articles in the library
Richard Thompson: The Session Great That Nobody Knows
Interview by Tony Norman, New Musical Express, 22 June 1972
THE TERM "GUITAR hero" is used with increasing regularity. Pete Townshend's splintering aggressive antics have won him the tag; Alvin "up and down the fretboard ...
British Folk Rock: Robin Hood Rides A Chopper
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 18 January 1973
Plainsong: In Search of Amelia Earhart (Elektra)Richard Thompson: Henry, the Human Fly (Warner Bros.)Steeleye Span: Below the Salt (Chrysalis)Incredible String Band: Earthspan (Reprise)Pentangle: Solomon's Seal ...
Richard and Linda Thompson: Life without Fairport
Interview by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 15 June 1974
RICHARD THOMPSON wrote 'Meet On The Ledge', in case you'd forgotten. On that basis alone the man would be due a certain portion of immortality. ...
Richard Thompson: That's It For Western Civilisation*
Interview by Patrick Humphries, New Musical Express, 23 April 1977
RICHARD THOMPSON, mainstay of Fairport Convention up to and including Full House, writer of fine spine-chilling songs, possessor of hauntingly effective voice and an unequivocally ...
Richard Thompson: The Guitar Hero as Mystic Recluse
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 7 October 1978
Richard Thompson is one of the world's finest guitarists, but a few years ago he "got cheesed off" and packed it all in. Now he's ...
Interview by Steve Burgess, Dark Star, December 1978
I HAVE THIS adrenaline-fueled, hyper-hallucinatory recall of the first time I saw Richard Thompson away from club stages and makeshift podiums in Hyde Park. He ...
Richard and Linda Thompson's Flight From Convention
Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, 5 April 1979
"IF I DON'T seem a part of the recording industry, it's probably because I don't feel a part of it," says Richard Thompson, the guitarist/songwriter/singer ...
Richard Thompson: Strict Tempo (Elixir LP I)
Review by Chas de Whalley, Record Mirror, 17 October 1981
ALBUMS LIKE this are comparatively rare these days. Strict Tempo simply presents good music for its own sake, showcasing the style and skill of a ...
Richard Thompson: McCabe's, Santa Monica, CA
Live Review by Mark Leviton, BAM, 15 January 1982
"IT'S TIME TO ring some changes" was, in the words of the opening song of the set, the basic theme of Richard Thompson's first group ...
Richard Thompson: Rockin' Guitar In The Celt Tradition
Interview by Gene Santoro, Downbeat, February 1985
IT'S NOT that he's unknown, exactly. Time magazine featured him and then-wife Linda in its August 30, 1982 issue, saying that his music "has the ...
Richard Thompson: A Rock Veteran's New Beginning
Profile and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 17 March 1985
RICHARD AND Linda Thompson, whose 10-year marriage and musical partnership ended in 1982, were a decidedly low-profile couple by rock standards. In fact, they were ...
"The Most Exciting Thing Is Playing Live" — Richard Thompson Downplays Studio Work
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, 30 March 1985
NEW YORK — Considering that Richard Thompson's albums invariably end up near the top of year-end critics' polls, one would think that the veteran British ...
"The Most Exciting Thing Is Playing Live": Richard Thompson Downplays Studio Work
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, 30 March 1985
NEW YORK — Considering that Richard Thompson's albums invariably end up near the top of year-end critics' polls, one would think that the veteran British ...
Richard Thompson: Across A Crowded Room (Polydor)
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 4 May 1985
DICK GETS DULL ...
Meet Mr. Hip, Mitchell Froom, the Man of a Thousand Mixes
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, November 1988
"WITH ALBUMS, you can't just play it straight on every track. If a song wants to be a hit, if it seems like — done ...
Richard Thompson: The Minstrel’s Tale
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1988
He is, by all accounts, a brilliant songwriter, a breathtaking guitarist, profoundly unphotogenic, a Moslem, an awkward old sod. Richard Thompson has spent 20 eventful ...
Richard Thompson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 14 October 1989
"IT'S TAKEN me a long time to clamber my way back to the top of showbiz," announces Richard wryly, "see under Wyman, Bill." Although he ...
Richard Thompson Rings Some Changes
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1990
The acoustic eclectic appreciates purists, but wouldn't want to be one ...
Richard Thompson: The Unsung Thompson
Interview by Mark Cooper, Daily Telegraph, 11 May 1991
Mark Cooper meets the folk hero who is now sharply observing home from abroad. ...
Richard Thompson: Rumor and Sigh (Capitol) ***½
Review by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, 11 July 1991
AN EXCEPTIONAL guitarist whose memorable songs have been widely covered, Richard Thompson is — more than twenty years into the personal odyssey that outlines his ...
Watching The Dark: The History of Richard Thompson
Review by Geoffrey Himes, Request, June 1993
LIKE MUCH OF his later writing, Greil Marcus' introductory notes to the new Richard Thompson box set, Watching the Dark, are a hodge-podge of strained ...
Interview by David Sinclair, MOJO, April 1994
THEY SAY THERE'S ONE IN EVERY CROWD. BUT HE'S ALWAYS hard to spot because he looks so normal. Quiet, polite, a little shy even. You ...
The Many Moods of Richard Thompson
Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 15 April 1994
RICHARD THOMPSON, godfather of grunge? "Well, I think so," the droll singer-guitarist says, on the phone from Columbus, Ohio, during a tour stop. "I was ...
Richard Thompson: Palladium, London — Two hours before a master
Live Review by David Cavanagh, The Independent, 14 May 1994
THE POSTCARD handed to each arriving punter at the Palladium said wistfully of Richard Thompson: "When will the world wise up to this remarkable man?" ...
Watcher Of The Dark: Richard Thompson, Guitar God From Planet Eureka
Book Excerpt by Gerrie Lim, 'Inside the Outsider' (BigO Books) , 1997
IT'S NIGH HIGH impossible to summarize Richard Thompson's vast repertoire and immense talent, not to mention demented humor, but one particular sentence from Thompson himself ...
Industry: A Tale of Two Thompsons
Review by Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post, 4 July 1997
DANNY THOMPSON grew up in the world described in the movie Brassed Off--the northern British villages where men scrub off the soot of the ...
Richard Thompson: Waterfront Hall, Belfast
Live Review by Colin Harper, The Independent, 21 January 1998
BELFAST'S WATERFRONT Hall embodies all the characteristics of a provincial Barbican – a kind of clinical, beige Gormenghast of a place where corridors lead to ...
Richard Thompson: The Old Kit Bag
Review by David Sinclair, The Word, March 2003
ONE OF THE MANY extraordinary things about Richard Thompson is how resistant he is to the image-making process. After all, here is a man who ...
Richard Thompson: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 17 March 2003
WHITE, MIDDLE-AGED English men dominate a crowd who have packed this venue to bursting for a man barely known outside their tribe. ...
Richard Thompson: Lyric, Hammersmith, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 29 August 2005
ALTHOUGH ONLY one of them was named on the ticket, there were two beard-y Thompsons on stage at the Lyric Hammersmith. ...
Review by Toby Manning, The Word, February 2006
A celebration of the life and music of Richard Thompson: folk rock legend so culty they boxed him twice: this time for fans only. ...
The Dust Of History: Forty Years Of Richard Thompson's Guitar/Vocal
Essay by Steve Redhead, Rock's Backpages, 23 July 2007
'But I'll be a friend and tell you what's in storeThere's nothing at the end of the rainbowThere's nothing to grow up for anymore''The End ...
Comment by Graeme Thomson, The Word, April 2009
Warm relations with Mother Dearest can be far from plain sailing. Graeme Thomson finds some deep lyrical evidence for The Dark Side Of The Mum. ...
Richard Thompson: Walking On A Wire
Review and Interview by Rob Young, Uncut, August 2009
Atop the emotional tightrope... an expansive, career-spanning four-CD set for Anglicana's finest guitar warrior. ...
Richard and Linda Thompson: Keeping Up with the Thompsons
Interview by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, October 2009
Once flippantly but affectionately called "the Sonny & Cher of the folk world", Richard & Linda Thompson are worshipped as living legends, a jewel in ...
The Family Business: Richard Thompson and Relatives
Retrospective and Interview by Larry Jaffee, Audiophile Review, April 2010
Sept. 2011 note: I spent 18 months working on this piece. Richard was the easiest to get hold of. When I shared this tidbit with ...
Report and Interview by Charles Bermant, No Depression, 6 April 2012
RICHARD THOMPSON is messing with the standard performer/audience equation in two ways this year. There was his participation in the Cayamo Songwriters' cruise in February, ...
Review by Charles Bermant, No Depression, 29 January 2013
YOU GOTTA FEEL for someone who doesn't own any Bob Dylan or Neil Young albums and hasn't a clue where to start. There are too ...
Richard Thompson: Gawsworth Hall, Cheshire
Live Review by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 12 August 2018
Half a century after his first gig with Fairport Convention, folk-rocker Richard Thompson is as cool and contemporary as ever. ...
see also Fairport Convention
see also Richard and Linda Thompson
see also Teddy Thompson
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