Dec. 03, 2008 - Issue #685: The Art of Rock

Richard Thompson

Thompson gets around

In his fourth decade as a songwriter, you might expect Richard Thompson to be able to impart some wisdom on music and its historical role in  storytelling.

 

“It’s a thing that human beings have been doing for a long time: telling stories through song,” Thompson says over the phone from California. “What surprises me is that it still applies. ... The two songs at the top of the request list are both ballads; they’re both five, six-minute songs that tell stories. 

 

“I suppose I’m underrating the audience, really. I’m thinking that people, in this age of immediacy and multimedia and stuff, that people are so easily distracted that they don’t have that ability,” he adds. “They really do have that ability.”

 

OK, maybe asking for some deep thoughts is too much of a cross to bear for the humble artist. He’s too busy working on his immortality, thank you very much. How else can you explain a canon of more records than you have fingers and toes (not to mention the scores of albums he’s appeared on with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, John Lydon and Loudon Wainwright III). From the early  groundbreaking days of Fairport Convention in the ‘60s to the three different projects he is currently working, there’s an endless fount of challenges to take on.

 

If Thompson keeps up this pace, there is little chance he’ll slip into obscurity. He’s already had a tribute album recorded by an impressive list of musicians that included David Byrne and Los Lobos and been awarded several lifetime-achievement   types of awards. While he might not have the name recognition of some of his contemporaries, like say Mick Jagger, there is something infinitely more compelling about him—and coming out with new material is only part of it. 

 

It’s also his self-deprecating manner, his literal sense of humour and his drive to constantly test himself.

 

“You have to keep yourself challenged. If you’re going to be any kind of musician, you have to keep pushing yourself and try and do different things, and trying to get better,” he explains. “That’s crucial. Unless you’re really excited about music, unless you’re really excited about performing, unless you’re excited about the possibilities around the corner, I think you’re going to play without any edge. You’re going to be a dull musician.”

 

Currently working on both an acoustic and an electric album, as well as a song cycle with a string orchestra (what he calls “a talent contest in hell”), there seems little chance that Thompson will slip into the doldrums of musical complacency any time soon. 

 

If he were, though, he could always fall back on soundtrack work. After scoring Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, Thompson went on to doing the same for The Grizzly Man Diaries, the serialized prequel to the film that recently aired on Animal Planet.

“I’m really good at bears, now. I can do bears really well,” Thompson says. “I’m saying that this is my soundtrack niche. All aspects of beardom, I can cover now. Not just the sounds, but bear emotions, the bear necessities, should we say.” V 

Sat, Dec 6 (8 pm)
Richard Thompson
Myer Horowitz Theatre, $34.25

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