There must be a great temptation for an artist of Richard Thompson’s pedigree, when encountering a journalist who mentions Bob Dylan by surname only, to give the old croaky sparrow a gentle little poke in the ribs. And so it was that, whilst enjoying a sit-down chat with Richard at the Cambridge Folk Festival, I was offered some exclusive insider information relating to Bob’s latest project. “Bob Dylan makes gates now; he’s got into welding. When he’s out on tour, he spots some junkyard and shouts “stop the bus, pull over”. He jumps out and buys up a bunch of scrap iron saying “OK ship that to my place in Malibu” where he gets out his welding torch and he makes gates. It’s a very prestigious thing to have a Bob Dylan gate in front of your house. Probably makes more from doing that than royalties these days.” Now if in any part of this anecdote turns out to be true, I’d merely like to say, you heard it here at Folk Radio first! (editorial note: It actually turns out to be true – read more here)
Danny Neill with Richard Thompson
Engaging an artist as they prepare for a festival set is never the greatest situation for an interview, in my experience, they’re generally more focused on the upcoming performance rather than regaling an inquisitor with answers to questions. But Richard Thompson is someone who I would never pass up the opportunity to speak to, no matter where the location. It helps of course that he is complimentary towards Folk Radio as we’re introduced and seems to enjoy Cambridge in general. “I like it here; I don’t really have roots in Cambridge. I’m originally from Suffolk, well part of my family is from Suffolk, but I love the Cambridge festival; it’s been going forever, and I love playing the Corn Exchange”.
My first Thompson related writing on these pages was a review of his electric Corn Exchange show late last year. During that review, I referred to the seating being at odds with Richard trying to lift the room with electric rock. He seems in agreement but admits “I get stick from both camps, they say ‘oh we’re too old to stand up’. So, what we do these days at a lot of places is partially seat, partially stand. That keeps most people happy but for an electric gig I really want most people standing up because it makes a difference.”
Earlier this weekend I had enjoyed Richard’s daughter Kami in her band and although he confides his offspring “never ask me anything [about music]”, he does enthuse with parental pride “but I’m a great fan of the Rails. I saw them in London a few days ago and they were spectacularly good, so good.”
Headlining that night had been Ralph McTell who, in contrast to Thompson, is rather prohibitively tied to one much-loved hit record. It’s a career situation he wouldn’t exchange for the freedom of varied catalogue selection enjoyed in concert. “Hit records are good because they expose you to more people, they kind of put you on the map. In some cases, you could extend your career because you can play in Italy, Scandinavia, Japan; places where it was an original hit forever. But as you say it can be a millstone and you can get truly sick of playing those one or two songs. So I absolutely would not trade particularly with that but I know for Ralph, because he also did the kids TV series and at one point his audience was under twelve and over sixty with nothing in the middle, I think he found it very frustrating. He deserves to be better known as a bona fide singer-songwriter, he’s a great singer-songwriter and should always have that audience.” I wonder if there are any songs at all Richard can’t drop from the set? “If I didn’t do Beeswing, if I didn’t do Vincent people scream for them in the encore so nine shows out of ten, I’ll do those songs or one of them. They’re hard to avoid but that’s OK I don’t mind that. They’re not songs I get tired of, if I got tired of them, I wouldn’t do them.”
The Richard Thompson back catalogue is now enviably deep and increasingly complicated. There’s been many a gem of a song played in concert never to appear on an album, falling between the cracks, but this doesn’t appear to trouble him. There’ll be no Neil Young style archive appearing any time soon, stating rather dismissively “he’s more organised than me, he cares more. I think in terms of songs, not albums. I think that’s a good song, that’s a good song but I might change my mind the next day and say I don’t like that one anymore. It’s just picking and choosing from the whole catalogue”. To add insult to certain long-out-of-print releases, he appears quite delighted to have them buried. Referring to the Richard & Linda albums ‘First Light’ and ‘Sunnyvista’ Thompson really puts the boot in. “I don’t think they’re very good records so for me, I’m happy that they’re not out there really. On the grounds of quality. Songs. Songwriting. Lack of focus. Lack of attitude. Wrong mindedness, whatever that means.”
Going forward Richard reveals that “the next record might be acoustic” and that if not quite pouring out, new songs “are still trickling out”. The stumbling block for a writer who once said his method was 9-5 office hours (which he still does “when I can”) is time. “It’s been tough these past few months, really hard to find the time but I will get back to it very soon. You can’t artificially make yourself write, either it comes, or it doesn’t come so hopefully that doesn’t dry up. But I love touring anyway and I can’t afford to stop touring. Everybody’s out there touring now because there’s no return on your intellectual property, it’s all about live.”
One of the recurring themes I’ve heard at the festival is on stage Trump and Boris bashing. Richard is in sincere approval, pointing out “a long tradition of the folk scene is political commentary. I think at this point bashing can be seen as political commentary; things are that extreme. If it seems appropriate to say something (in the upcoming Cambridge set) I will.” He has good form on this front, I recall a brilliant updating of the Phil Ochs classic ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’ in 2003 around the WMD debacle (sample lyric “would their blood still boil if there wasn’t any oil, I ain’t marching anymore”). “I had people storming out of gigs. Most of my audience are open-minded but there’s always the odd person screaming and ranting “this is unfair”. I used to love Phil Ochs and I met him many, many times in the States. He was a very political animal and he was nothing like a folk singer; entrepreneurial, vein, a real character.”
As previously announced on Folk Radio, Richard is preparing for an incredible looking 70th birthday celebration concert at the Royal Albert Hall in September. However, today he’s not feeling especially nostalgic or reflective as “my actual birthday has already passed so I’ve already done that. It’s very depressing but we move on and yes, I’m just looking forward to the Albert Hall as an event. I think it will be lots of fun. It’s a train wreck right now, I just have to get it all organised.” Among a mouth-watering line up of folk royalty, family and former Fairport colleagues a few other less-expected names stand out, such as Hugh Cornwell from The Stranglers?
“Me and Hugh were 14/15 years old in a little school band together. We are hopefully going to do a song that we played in our school band.” Then there’s Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, who has previously shown his appreciation of Thompson’s music by covering ‘Dimming Of The Day’. “Hopefully we’ll do that and maybe an old Floyd classic or something. I think he’s a really lovely player, he’s got a really nice touch. And he’s a good human being. If you’re a good human being, you stand a chance of being a good musician.” Above all, judging by comments I’ve heard over the festival this weekend, the burning question is will he do a song with Linda? “She doesn’t have the voice right now. I would do a song with her absolutely without hesitation. But she can’t even speak really, her voice is so shot. But she’s going to be on stage, she’s going to be up in the chorus singing along.”
Indulging me in a touch of seventies reminiscence on his time with Linda playing this festival, Richard tells of how they “used to have a manager who lived not too far from Cambridge. He said, ‘why don’t you come up for the weekend, I’ve got this nice little cottage’. His wife was going to cook for us, so he said, ‘we’ll just drive you over to the festival on the Saturday, you’ve got a gig at 4 o’clock in the afternoon’. So, we said, ‘that’s great’ and travelled up on the Friday night, had dinner. Then at about 10pm I thought ‘oh shit, I’m supposed to teach an archery class back in London’. This was early in the morning, like 7am. So, I thought what I’m going to do is get up really early in the morning at 5am, drive back to London, teach the class. Then I’ll take a nap at our house in London and I’ll drive back in the afternoon. I set the alarm, the alarm didn’t go off and I overslept. I woke up at 3pm in the afternoon in London, I’m on stage in Cambridge at 4pm. Five minutes later I was in the car driving, you know A1, A505 through Baldock and Royston, tyres screaming all the way, jumping traffic lights, it was ridiculous. And I got there at five to four, which was like from Hampstead in London to the festival in 55 minutes. Incredible. People were shouting and screaming at me but of course, in those days I didn’t have a phone to call anybody on, it was before all that stuff. You couldn’t call backstage and they couldn’t call me. It was crazy, but I got there.”
21 March 2021 Update: Richard Thompson’s autobiography “Beeswing: Fairport, Folk Rock and Finding My Voice, 1967–75” is out on 15 April. Order it via Amazon (Hardback/Kindle)