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CD review: Richard Thompson box set is a heavy-hitter
‘Walking on a Wire: (1968-2009)’
(Shout Factory)
A-
“Walking on a Wire” is a top-flight introduction to a guy who might be the greatest living British bluesman.
Not in the 12-bar or Clapton sense, but in the sense that Richard Thompson’s music taps into the well of emotional chaos and elemental storytelling that fuels the deepest blues. Then he translates those feelings into a guitar glossolalia that could only come from a son of Albion.
Just as the blues is profoundly American, Thompson’s music is decidedly United Kingdom. With Fairport Convention, he fused the most ancient of British ballads into a vibrant, electric folk rock as thrilling in its own Scots manner as Dylan’s update of Woody Guthrie. With wife Linda, he made some of the 1970s’ most emotionally exhausting rock, peaking with 1982’s no-really-it’s-not-JUST-about-divorce classic “Shoot Out the Lights.” He spent the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s looking for new fans now and then and honing a fan base that just kept getting harder core. A critical darling and commercial nonstarter for most of his career, he can sell out small to mid-sized venues pretty much wherever he chooses to go. Not a bad life, really.
That doesn’t make it too surprising that this is the third(!) box set of Thompson’s career. The first, “Watching the Dark” (Hannibal/Ryko, 1993), was a three-CD affair that mixed studio tracks and rarities (The version of “A Sailor’s Life” on there should get some sort of Nobel Prize.)
The next, “RT: The Life and Music of Richard Thompson” (Free Reed, 2006) was a five-CD, fanatics-only behemoth with fan-chosen hits, amazing and obscure live guitar blowouts and some of the ugliest graphics in box set history.
“Walking on a Wire” is the opposite, a four-CD overview of his studio output from the Fairport days (“Meet on the Ledge” and the epic “Sloth” still thrill) through the Richard and Linda years to his most recent solo album, the surprisingly rocking “Sweet Warrior.”
Thompson has always quibbled with being called a mope, but the recorded evidence is pretty overwhelming. His isn’t an adolescent, Robert Smithy mope, but one who has a deep-seated knowledge that happiness is an occasion (“Old Man Inside a Young Man”) and the complexities of love often just make things worse (“Withered and Died,” “I Misunderstood”). And his guitar playing lives in those moments when melancholia becomes sublime (“Calvary Cross,” here in its tight studio version, deserves to be heard live).
His ’80s and ’90s output suffered a bit from a long-term collaboration with Mitchell Froom. Froom’s production is often too slick and too vanilla by half, turning solid songs into dad-rock almost by design.
Thompson wisely cherry picks from these albums, and of course most of the songs are from 1991’s “Rumor and Sigh” where the tunecraft was good enough to withstand Froomization. (Or dispensed with it altogether - “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” is just Thompson and an acoustic guitar; it became a live staple, perhaps his all-time most popular song).
But he got over it, and “Walking On A Wire” shows you why people have adored him for 40 years.
These days, Thompson still tours constantly, knocking out studio albums or fan-club records or movie scores or guest spots on other people’s albums, working and playing and playing and working. These days, a young man is inside the old man.
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By charles Gardner
August 25, 2009 11:14 AM | Link to this
Joe, you have betrayed your real bias here-not just a critic, but a fan with accurate and deep knowledge of RT. Thanks for the well-written piece. Everyone should know about this guy, but that will probably not happen in our lifetime. Maybe when he’s dead, he can finally make a living.
By madhukar arya
August 27, 2009 2:37 AM | Link to this
Rt is one of the most intelligent guitarists i have ever seen. saw him 28 years ago in san francisco and sat directly in front of him, at the foot of the stage in a small club. i found him strangely bereft of most 12-bar riffing… he thought/felt each note and chord in a most compelling way. your right…more people should know him. an original artist. m.
By mll
August 27, 2009 11:56 AM | Link to this
Jeez, Gross actually wrote a positive review about someone i like. Rare Indeed. Seriously, I haven’t bought this set yet, but it is a good place to start for RT newbies. One quibble, where is “When the Spell is Broken”? Charles, I think RT makes quite a good living. No he’s not getting rich, he doesn’t get the pub. that a Clapton or Neil Young gets and he’s definitely flying under most folks’ radar, but he sells out Austin every time he’s in town.