Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Richard Thompson, Bandcamp 2021.
English musicologist and folk singer/songwriter Richard Thompson has been busy in his home studio throughout the pandemic.
In July last year he released an excellent EP titled Bloody Noses and he’s followed that up with a 16-track album, Live From London, which is mostly acoustic and covers tracks from his extensive back catalogue.
Richard has been around for a very long time and has become a living treasure in his birth country, the USA – where he’s lived for many years- and in folk circles around the world.
He’s a prolific songwriter and his compositions have been covered by many of the world’s greatest performers including Elvis Costello, the Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, David Gilmour, The Corrs, and Alison Krauss to name a few.
My first introduction to his work was via a track on a compilation album that I picked up when I was living in England in 1984.
It was at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s war against the trade union movement and Billy Bragg and others were performing at the mass rallies in support of the miners.
I can’t be certain but I think that Richard was one of them.
I went looking for the album while writing this review however it seems to have vanished from my collection but I do remember that Richard Thompson’s song was one of the best on the LP.
It impressed me enough that I started to collect his work.
Live From London is the recorded version of a live streamed concert that brightened up the darkness of an English winter in lockdown.
The picture on the album cover depicts Richard looking like an older version of Che Guevara and it tells us something about the man and his music.
Like Billy Bragg he has a social conscious and this comes out in his songs.
Tracks like The Sun Never Shines On The Poor, The Deserter, Poor Ditching Boy, and Hand of Kindness are wonderful examples of the continuation of songs that chronicle the plight of the poor and dispossessed.
Live From London is an excellent introduction to Richard Thompson’s work.
I will review another album from him in the coming weeks.
