Another Richard Thompson fan[atic?] here! I go back with RT, all the way to the earliest Sandy Denny inclusive Fairport Convention of the nineteen-sixties. Unhalfbricking spun on my AR turntable regularly. RT was still the young star, even with Sandy there. She decided to throw in with Fairport, it is said, principally because of Richard. RT's teenage compositions -- Meet on the Ledge and Genesis Hall, for example -- are still stellar by any reasonable standard. By contrast, almost all teenage P. McCartney could manage of some staying power as a youthful composer was the filler tune, When I'm Sixty-Four; or some incipient version of that. Not to belittle Sir Paul in any way, you understand.
For even earlier Fairport, check out the barnburner Time Will Tell the Wiser, on YouTube... featuring 17-or-18 year-old axeman RT shyly hiding behind a mass of curly hair, whilst tearing it up on a killer riff and solo.
So I'm listening to a lot of RT and picking up the newer stuff on electric guitar. There's just one complaint I have with the latest Trio, and that is NBA-sized drum-punisher Michael Jerome, who I find to be a huge distraction, all-in-all. Yeah, I know RT goes a-ways back with this fellow, but still...
Also, don't forget about his ex, Linda, who is recording and performing once more after a long vocal incapacity. She's one of THE great singers... whose stuff all those "Why sing one note when I can sing twelve?" histrionics-robots should lock themselves in a room with... not to come out until they finally "get it". I wouldn't hold my breath... Don't miss the relatively recent, My Love's Not Where I live... so achingly beautiful... and while sounding almost contemporary, dating back to the 17th Century. They must have had a swell Top 40 back then, if this one's any indication. Ditto Dylan's Pretty Saro with David Bromberg, BTW.
And finally, I have been on a deeper-into-the-catalog ABBA binge most recently. Yep, ABBA. The deep layers of goodness here are really special, indeed: There's a surprisingly eclectic range of styles on display from this underrated-in-dumbed-down-USA super group; just on YouTube alone. Make sure you don't miss going 40+ songs deep into those videos, if you don't believe me.
Lovely Agnetha and Anni-Frid are two of the most accomplished rock era pop singers, as well; and without a doubt, broadly experienced musical sophisticates... something which shows through in various subtle, and not so subtle ways on track after track. Hmm, sophisticated "bubblegum"music (Honey, Honey), you ask? Sure; why not say it? Note the completely clued-in, self-aware perspective they give that cited bit of pleasing, bouncing fluff, just as one example. Agnetha started singing the Great American Songbook, fronting a big band, when she was just 15; Frida was a jazz singer. See the point?
Arguably, the "girls" never fail to stay spot-on in phrasing, timing, or with shadings of vocal color on any of these tracks. Ironically, ABBA suffers some measure of ignorant, narrow-minded, and self-aggrandizing criticism here and there for committing the crime of being so catchy, so consistently. ...As if they had to be almost boring for stretches at a time just to prove that they "get" the angst, absurdity, and complexity of the human condition; as if they needed to sometimes, somehow mimic the aire of a sort of dreary, post-modernist European intellectual, sucking Gauloises at a cafe table, somewhere on the Left Banke. ...Or even worse (?), to be like some "confessional" songwriter past her best bits.
As Duke Ellington put it, there are two kinds of music -- good music, and bad music.
O.K., then. Coming back around to RT barnburners to close, check out the latter day live-group rendition of Cooksferry Queen on YouTube: If that one went on a minute longer, your computer would catch on fire! -- Fred
