Loudon Wainwright a second time
The Richard Thompson show on Thursday was excellent. There aren’t many people who can get away with playing a gig the longest section of which is new material that the majority of the audience hasn’t heard, but Richard triumphed, as proved by the standing ovations at the end. You get less of your favourite songs in an RT band show, but instead you get a lot of great guitar solos, which are even stronger and longer than ever before, a point I was reminded of when I played the tour only live album from 1985 that I bought at the interval. I saw the ’85 tour (in Worksop, Nottingham, with Sue, John Harvey and the late Angus Wells) and recall it as being excellent. The CD of the tour confirms this. But Richard’s guitar work has moved up a couple more levels since then.
Even in the longer version of my interview with Richard below, I had to leave out several of the questions and answers and skipped the more predictable ones eg which other musicians do you most admire. Top of his list was Loudon Wainwright III, who I wrote about here last year. I asked if there was any chance of his repeating the joint solo tour he did with Loudon in the US last year and he said it was a possibility. In the meantime though, Loudon does a short tour of the UK in May and we have our tickets. Here’s a great song that I rediscovered recently. It’s easily missed, as it’s from Strange Weirdos, the partly instrumental soundtrack to the movie Knocked Up. Above there’s a bit of dodgy live video above where Loudon sings both ‘Daughter’ and one his more throwaway jokey songs. Enjoy.
