Richard Thompson

I'm really excited! One of my all-time favourite artists, Richard Thompson, is playing at Amoeba records in Hollywood tomorrow.To be honest, I'm not quite sold on his new album. But this man has such an amazing, solid body of work behind him, and I like so much of it, that I'm willing to accept that we might finally be drifting in seperate directions. I guess this stuff doesn't appeal to everyone (I was brought up by hardcore folkies -a.k.a. my parents- and spent a substantial proportion of my youth sitting round in pubs singing songs about shephards, saucy sailors, and buxom wenches, so my tolerance to folk of all kinds may be higher than most) but its worth breaking through pre-conceptions about this type of music (see cliches listen above) and listening to this man's amazing songwriting and musicianship. Barely the whiff of a sailor. I last saw him play in Bristol, with Danny Thompson on the double bass. Danny made some sounds with that thing that I never heard come out of any instrument, let alone a double bass! Thompson sang for about two hours, his voice strong the whole way through the performance and showing no signs of flagging. Mind-blowing. Here's a song from the excellent 'Action Packed'.