FAI 2018 Feature Interviews - Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson, co-founder of Fairport Convention and named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 'Top 20 Guitarists if All Time", is one of the world's most virtuosic folk-rock icons. Thompson has recorded 40 albums, been nominated for multiple GRAMMY awards, appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and honored with awards like the Orville H. Gibson Award for best acoustic guitar plater, the Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, and a lifetime achievement award from BBC radio.

[@jonkiparsky7369]

Great stuff! Thompson can be pretty self-deprecating at times, so it's nice to hear him drop that mask and go deep into some of this stuff. I'm intrigued by the "teatime of the soul" - I'd always assumed that this was a Douglas Adams coinage, so I'm curious to know whether it was an older reference that Adams picked up, or whether Thompson picked it up from Adams and then mentally backdated it. If the latter, it's a great tribute to Douglas Adams' grasp on the British psyche - and another example of the "folk process" at work!

[@davidt9238]

Wonderful interview. Love listening to Richard. My 3 favourite British musicians, in no particular order - Richard Thompson, Peter Green, and Ray Davies, with Steve Winwood coming in fourth. I agree with Richard that Pink Floyd was best when Syd led the group. Persuaded a bunch of friends to come with me to see Richard play a solo show in Canada in 1982. He blew us all away with his many talents and wonderful banter with the audience. That was one of the two or three best concerts of my life and to this day I still feel priviledged to have been there.

[@MichaelSheffield-ox8yd]

Saw him live three times. Agree with everything you wrote.

[@keithkoenig5320]

Thompson...a true legend. What a career and he is still going strong. Will see him live in Kansas City this Sunday.

[@MsRTfan]

Worth your time

[@machinehead6564]

Great Stuff

[@Matt63491]

Thank you so much for this ! Excellent !

[@mattwilmshurst8456]

Love the wobbly table!

[@Pwecko]

Thank you for this. It was thoroughly engaging.

[@pastorflaps6819]

Amazing as Mr Thompson is very hard to get an interview with

[@reidwhitton6248]

Thanks!

[@goodun2974]

At 50:20, "the bad verses have been filtered out"......David Lindley does a version of Pretty Polly ---- a ballad based on the "Gosford Incident" of the 1600's where a sailor murdered his pregnant lover ---- but with a lyrical rewriting so that Polly turns the tables on her would-be killer.

[@goodun2974]

At around 43:00 and on, with Thompson reflecting on how a song might mean different things to different people, or elude attempts to understand it, even for he who wrote it, I am reminded of Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane: " I wanna be obscure and oblique/ inscrutable and vague, so hard to pin down...." from. "Misunderstood", on the "Rough Mix" record. I love that song ---- " I wanna be misunderstood/ I wanna be feared in my neighbourhood/ Just wanna be a moody man/ say things that nobody can understood....Why am I so straight and simple?/ people see through me like I'm made of glass....."

[@Rahoorkhuitable]

If you concentrate on that table, you´ll be able to sing "A sailor´s life" backwards....

[@maxcuthbert100]

A great listen,very eloquent indeed. Slight shame about the hiss,though.

[@apolloc.vermouth5672]

That's the sound of rock 'n' roll's engines, my friend...