RT: Yeah, that’s a good question. I suppose I am, in one sense. I’d say that I’m on the fringe of the music industry. But I do perform music a bit like those troubadours; I go from town to town and I bring what I have to offer — on a yearly basis!
ND: Some would say that rock ‘n’ roll is itself a traditional music now — a set, period genre you can choose to pick up and play with.
RT: It is a traditional music; it’s a classical music. You accept that when you pick up an instrument and start playing it these days. It’s, “I play, you know, middle romantic period rock” or “grunge with a hint of punk and some New Romantics thrown in.” It’s always in terms like that!
ND: Songs of yours, all through the years, including “Miss Patsy” or “Row Boys Row” on the new album, seem to bring together really old language, sounds and rhythms, and the very current — so seamlessly that it can feel unplanned. Do you still set out to write something that way, or does that old/new mix just happen now?
RT: It’s just what comes out. I think that if you’re steeped in a tradition, if you’re, say, a bluegrass musician or something, when you sit down to write a song it sounds like a bluegrass song. You’re not thinking, “I need a verse that sounds like Bill Monroe here and a bridge that sounds like Jim & Jesse.” It’s an unconscious thing. Very occasionally, I will sit down and say ‘”Well, what is it that I do — and why do I do it?” I’ll ask myself these larger questions.
ND: Would your latest self-exam show sophisticated, theater-style pop song-making speaking to you more strongly lately? “Let It Blow” on the new Front Parlour Ballads CD, or the very witty “I’ve Got The Hots For The Smarts” song which you’ve been doing live, seem close to Broadway or West End musical theater material, with more complex musical lines and lots of wordplay. They bring to mind the likes of Cole Porter.
RT: Well, I am a longtime fan of people like Noel Coward, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart — stuff that I both grew up with and which was part of the general mix. And obviously, I listened to some Paul McCartney then, and he knows that music very well. It’s just in there, part of the family music diet on the old gramophone. So it’s fun to sit down and write those kinds of lyrics sometimes.
ND: You brought up bluegrass. Did the Del McCoury Band version of your “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” take you by surprise?
RT: I didn’t know that they were going to do it! I’m glad that the song translated that way. I wrote it as almost a contemporary version of a 16th-century Scottish ballad, so I’m glad that it seemed contemporary enough to cover, and that there was enough common ground with Scots-Irish music and Appalachian.
ND: It’s a big request song for you, of course, but it’s definitely the song people ask Del for most these days, too.
RT: And now other bluegrass people have covered it. I’ve had a few country covers. There’s a new one by Patty Loveless; it’s a great version. Melodically, particularly, but I’m sure emotionally too, there’s some common ground there.
ND: Yes. Patty’s new version of “Keep Your Distance” leads off her new CD, and, I’m told, is the first single. Has there ever been a concerted effort to get more Richard Thompson songs recorded by country artists? The storytelling or situation-setting part of what you write would have its most logical American pop spectrum home in country.
RT: I think that’s absolutely true. As you say — the story is important in country, and I write a lot often, so I’m with you all the way there!
ND: You’re in favor of seeing more of that.
RT: I’m always in favor of covers, thank you!
ND: It’s been twenty years now since you emerged as a solo performer and singer. That whole package seemed so very different from the shy, songwriting guitar player over on the side there, which you’d been for nearly twenty years before that!
RT: That’s true. I thought it was a challenge; as early as the mid-’70s I’d do the occasional solo show, just to prove that I could stand up there and do it. It’s almost a test of who you are as a musician. Can you really sing? Can you really play? Communicate with an audience? Can you really perform? Well, here’s the test.
I enjoyed doing that from time to time — and then in the early ’80s there was the financial aspect; sometimes I had to go out solo. To be able to both have a band and play solo is a great luxury that I’ve had since then.
ND: I can recall an early U.S. solo performance of yours at the Town Crier club just north of New York in ’85…
RT: Oh, sure!
ND: You hadn’t, I think, done that many shows like that yet, but it all seemed just to flow, including “Willie And The Hand Jive” with all the hand moves. You seemed instantly more polished and comfortable up there than a lot of people ever get. Where did that come from? Had you sort of worked up an act?
