Profile of Richard Thompson on Famous Like Me

For the British Conservative politician, see Richard Thompson (UK politician)

Richard Thompson (born April 3, 1949 in London, England) is a musician, best-known as a guitar player and songwriter. He is a Muslim convert.

Biography

Richard studied classical guitar for two years in his teens. He might have studied English literature after his A-levels but had a musical career in mind. He left school in 1967 and became an apprentice with a stained-glass maker for about 6 months. This gave enough spare time to play music in the evenings. He first became prominent as a founding member of British folk-rockers Fairport Convention, a group sometimes dubbed "the English Jefferson Airplane." During his Fairport days, Thompson wrote the song "Meet on the Ledge," which remained Fairport's most requested tune and also his well-known folk-rock ballad, "Genesis Hall."

Thompson went solo in 1971, releasing the album Henry The Human Fly in 1972. Richard then began performing with wife Linda and I Want To see The Bright Lights Tonight (1974) was the first of six albums from the duo. This first album and the last, Shoot Out The Lights (1982), are the most notable of the duo's releases. The couple divorced in 1982, and they now perform solo again. Thompson's albums are often acclaimed by critics, and his guitar work has long received the respect of his peers (Rolling Stone placed him at #19 on their questionable 2003 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time), but over the years he has found only moderate commercial success. His solo recordings have received two Grammy Award nominations, one for Best Alternative Music Album for Rumour and Sigh (1991), his most commercially popular album to date, and one for Best Contemporary Folk Album for his double CD you? me? us? (1996).

At the time of their separation Linda had just given birth to their third child Kamilla, who together with her brother Teddy (who started his own career in 2003), and their father, recorded on Linda's album Fashionably Late, which also included ex-Pentangle bass player Danny Thompson (no relation), a frequent collaborator with Richard on his recent albums.

Thompson has made two records with John French, Fred Frith and Henry Kaiser under the name French Frith Kaiser Thompson. He has made dozens of appearances as a session musician, including albums by the Golden Palominos, Sandy Denny, Bonnie Raitt, Beausoleil, Nile Rodgers, Maria McKee (formerly of eighties country-rock band Lone Justice), Nick Drake, Crowded House, Suzanne Vega, Loudon Wainwright III (whom Richard has toured with), Ashley Hutchings and John Kirkpatrick.

In recent years Thompson has devised and toured his show 1000 Years Of Popular Music. These shows take a chronological trip through popular music across the ages, and are performed by a trio of Thompson with singer/pianist Judith Owen and a percussionist. A typical performance would start with a medieval round and climax with Thompson's unique take on the Britney Spears hit "Oops!... I Did It Again".

Discography

Albums

• Fairport Convention
  • Fairport Convention (1968)
  • What We Did On Our Holidays (1969)
  • Unhalfbricking (1969)
  • Liege and Lief (1969)
  • Full House (1970)
  • Live At The LA Troubadour (1970)
  • House Full (1970)
  • Heyday:BBC Radio Sessions (BBC 1968-69) (1987)
  • The History of Fairport Convention

• Richard and Linda Thompson
  • I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight (1974)
  • Hokey Pokey (1975)
  • Pour Down Like Silver (1975)
  • First Light (1978)
  • Sunnyvista (1979)
  • Shoot Out The Lights (1982)
  • The Best Of Richard & Linda Thompson: The Island Years (2000)

• Richard Thompson
  • Henry The Human Fly (1972)
  • (guitar, vocal) (1976)
  • Live! (more or less) (1976)
  • Strict Tempo! (1981)
  • Hand Of Kindness (1983)
  • Small Town Romance (1984)
  • Across A Crowded Room (1985)
  • Daring Adventures (1986)
  • Amnesia (1988)
  • Rumor And Sigh (1991)
  • Watching The Dark (1993) | 3-CD retrospective
  • Mirror Blue (1994)
  • you? me? us? (1996)
  • Mock Tudor (1999)
  • Action Packed: The Best of the Capitol Years (2001)
  • The Old Kit Bag (2003)
  • Live From Austin,Tx (2005)
  • Front Parlour Ballads (2005)

• Richard & Danny Thompson
  • Industry (1997)

• The GPs
  • Saturday Rolling Around (1991)
• French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson
  • Live, Love, Larf & Loaf (1987)
  • Invisible Means (1990)

• Philip Pickett and Richard Thompson
  • The Bones of all Men (1998)
• The Bunch
  • Rock On (1972)
• Soundtracks
  • The Marksman (Music From The BBC TV Series) (1987)
  • Sweet Talker (1991)
  • Grizzly Man (Music From the Werner Herzog documentary (2005)

• Fan club and own-label releases (these are not available in retail outlets but can be purchased via his web site or at concerts)
  • Doom And Gloom From The Tomb, volume 1 (1985)
  • Doom & Gloom II (Over My Dead Body) (1991)
  • Live At Crawley (with Danny Thompson) (1995)
  • Two Letter Words: live 1994 (1996)
  • Celtschmerz: Live in the UK ‘98 (1998)
  • Semi Detached Mock Tudor (2002)
  • 1000 Years of Popular Music (2003)
  • More Guitar (2003)
  • Ducknapped (2004)
  • Faithless (2004)
  • The Chrono Show (2004)
  • Front Parlour Ballads (2005)

• DVDs
  • Live in Providence (2004)
  • Live From Austin,Tx (2005)

Singles

See Also

• Rolling Stone's List of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Richard Thompson