While I have had designs of filling the pages of this blog with an intriguing and hopefully unique collection of my slanted views on life, Baltimore, the Orioles, baseball, and music, displaying for my devoted readership a smattering of interesting and thought-provoking links, and perhaps providing a forum for general community discussion in the interest of furthering the human experience, my wife really thinks that I should write about cats.
I must have been 16 - maybe 15 - when I first followed the lead of every teenager to ever live through the mid-80s to late-90s and signed up for Columbia House. For those poor spoilt kids who did not grow up in an era when every CD you've ever wanted was not at your fingertips, Columbia Music House was a mail-order service wherein you got a catalog full of
music albums (presumably by artists signed to Columbia), picked the few that you were yearning for, spent your hard-earned lawn mowing money, mailed the card back, and waited 4 - 6 weeks for your CD's to arrive.
In retrospect, I find it absolutely incredible that I was able to wait that long for a CD I wanted. I mean, it's not like there weren't music stores around. There was just something about the process that was appealing, I guess.
The thing about Columbia and BMG and all of the other music mail-order clubs, was that they were forever offering us poor teenagers absolutely ridiculous introductory offers to join the club. Basically they were along the lines of, "JOIN TODAY AND GET 25 FREE CDS FOR 1 PENNY! ABSOLUTELY NO COMMITMENT!*"
*Of course there is a commitment, you stupid 15 year old fool
Anyway, of course this ripe temptation proved too much for even my hardened adolescent sense of prudence. I mean, 25 free CDs! I didn't even have 25 CDs in my entire collection! So I signed up. And let me tell you, the sense of profound freedom that you feel once you have crossed the mental Rubicon of submitting to these record company tycoons must be similar to what folks feel when they sell their soul to the devil for a donut or whatever. I'm pretty sure I signed the contract in blood.
But then I was faced with an even greater dilemma: having caught my Eric Clapton catalog up to date, and Hootie's newest album* confidently marked down in #2 pencil on the little form, the choices in what heretofore seemed like an oasis of music kinda...dried up.
*Fairweather Johnson, of course
I mean, I suppose now I could find 25 albums I would like to have for free pretty easily, but when you're 15 in Waynesboro, PA, you don't exactly have the musical depth of John Cusak. Unless it was Foghat, Skynyrd, or Garth Brooks, I couldn't be sure of what I was getting. And believe me, these were important choices; I certainly wasn't going to actually buy any CDs once the promotion was up*. When you don't have any money and someone is giving you something for free, it tends to take on a certain level of import. So I wanted my picks to count, but I was running out of sure things.
**Wrong
Which is when mine eyes did gaze upon a promotional spot for a guy named Richard Thompson and his brand-new album, "Mock Tudor".
"Richard Thompson combines the fiery guitar work of Eric Clapton with the lyrical genius of Bob Dylan"
That's good, said I.
"He's British"
Oh, splendid!, said I.
And I carefully filled in the album number in the mail-in form, eventually found some other stuff I thought I would like, mailed it out, and proceeded to wait 4 - 6 weeks for my CDs to arrive.
I can still remember when the package came vividly - it was huge. Not those puny 2-3 CD boxes my sister got - filled with drivel like Wilson Philips and Whitney Houston - no, this was a massive thing, and filled with a brilliant and extremely methodically thought-out selection of music. This was something to behold, and something that would take some time to wade through.
I'm sure it probably took me at least a night to get through everything.
Everything, that is, except for my diamond in the rough - Mock Tudor. I had taken the gift of a free CD and spent it on a total unknown. It was akin to being given a compensation first-round draft pick and spending it on someone you've never scouted because you like their name and the cut o' their jib. But I was hopeful - he came so highly recommended, whole quarter-page ad and all - I mean, they compared him to Eric Clapton! They (those honest record company advertisers) would certainly never exaggerate such a claim! So with all the faith in the world, I slammed the CD in my stereo and hit play.
To say I was underwhelmed would be...well, I suppose it would be wrong. I just wasn't interested. It didn't grab me at all. I didn't like the guy's voice. His guitar playing sounded nothing like Clapton. The songs sounded really.....gay. And besides, I had Fairweather Johnson! Who needs this crumpet?
And there Mr. Thompson went, underneath a stack of free CDs, to live for quite some time.
It would also be wrong for me to say that I didn't go back to listen to that album every once in a while over the next few years. I did. There was something about that damn ad in that catalog that just intrigued me. They were so confident that he was an absolute musical genius, a unique wizard on the guitar, and someone that guitar players, above all, should absolutely worship. I wanted to like the album, but it just never came together for me. In addition to all this, I kept hearing his name mentioned in passing - never a full album review or a TV special dedicated to him or anything like that - by magazines that I liked and by musicians that I really liked. Everyone basically had the same things to say about him:
"He's like Dylan. If Dylan wrote really really really dark songs about loneliness all the time."
"He was such an incredible influence on me - on all of us, really. No, really!"
"He has the respect of the entire rock and folk music community."
"His guitar tone sounds like running rusty razor blades over Brillo pads."
All of which only served to fuel my interest in this crazy guy. Here was a musician (and an old musician at that) that people like Bono and Michael Stipe and Mark Knopfler and Bonnie Raitt and (yes) Dylan and John Prine were absolutely falling over themselves to compliment and call an absolute genius, who not only never had a #1, Top Ten, Top 100 or probably Top 300 hit in his life, and of whom none - absolutely none - of my friends, musician or otherwise, had ever heard. And not just that, "Oh yeah, I've heard of him - I have to check him out", or "Yeah, I guess I've heard some of his stuff - not for me" business. Nobody had ever heard of him.
And I think - just a theory - that this is when I began to absolutely fall in love with the idea of Richard Thompson.
That's probably also when I first heard the song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning".
I remember downloading it on Napster (lol) in my dorm at the University of Maryland because I had seen his name - again - in a Guitar Player magazine list of the 100 Greatest Solos of All Time. That's right, right next to Prince's Little Red Corvette intro and Slash's Purple Rain outro was his name touting his acoustic finger-style acumen as well as his love for drop-D tuning. So once again I spent exactly $0.00 on Richard Thompson and downloaded the song.
I was stunned.
It is a magnificent song, and a magnificent recording. It is simply a man singing and playing acoustic guitar. Except it sounds like there are two guitars - one playing rhythm and one playing the melody. The two lines interact and overlap and somehow he's able to solo over his own bass line on a simple acoustic guitar. It is a simple vocal melody, but it fits his voice like a glove, and I've never since heard anyone cover it and do it any kind of justice. The story he unfolds is also a simple one:
1. Guy on motorcycle meets girl; is tough
2. Girl seems to take a shine to this fellow
3. Guy warns girl that he is tough
4. Girl says she likes that kind of thing
5. Guy and girl ride around together on motorcycle; have enjoyable experiences
6. Guy tries to rob some place (he's tough); gets shot in the chest with a shotgun
7. Girl finds out - rushes to his side
8. Guy, in one final, heartbreaking, poignant, brilliant verse, reveals that there is nothing in this world/[that] beats a '52 Lightning and a red-headed girl (sob)
9. Guy dies and gives girl keys to his motorcycle with instructions to ride on without him
The lyrics are so beautifully poetic, so perfectly timed, so brilliantly constructed, that it's hard to believe that it isn't a classic English folk song. Save for the motorcycle and shotgun, it probably could be - just substitute them for a chariot and crossbow or whatever Chaucer got around on.
It was a perfect song for Thompson - even I don't think he's ever written better - and probably the song that he's most famous for and associated with today. But he wrote it in 1991 - almost 20 years after he first started his solo career and 25 years after he started playing music with Fairport Convention. And that thought alone gave me pause and gave me hope. This dude toiled - and I do mean toiled - for twenty years of his life as a 'professional' musician, going through three record labels and countless contracts, a divorce, and a religious conversion, before recording what could possibly be known as his 'hit'. Except it wasn't a hit at all, and you've probably never heard of it. But you should.
Go on, take a break and enjoy:
What "1952 VBL" did for me was not only prove all of these things people were saying about him being a brilliant guitarist and songwriter, it also gave me a song to play for other musicians to introduce him to them. And the best part was, they had never heard of him and they were always amazed at both how great the song was and that they had never heard of him. He became for me, the most uncool of music snobs - the Classic Rock Music Snob - the Artist That I Found and Was Into Way Before You. While my roommate was trying to get me into this cool new band the White Stripes before anyone had heard of them, I was trying to get everyone into a 55 year-old obscure ex-electric folk rocker with no hit songs and who wore a stupid Kangol hat everywhere.
Such is life.
At any rate, I've always been up for a challenge and typically, the more obscure the better for me, so I began to really dig into his catalog. I went the whole way back to his Island Music days, with songs like "Hokey Pokey", "The Great Valerio", "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight", and "Calvary Cross". I really got into his middle period, culminating in the somehow groundbreaking and important and yet unknown album "Shoot Out the Lights", which was kinda sorta maybe written about, but absolutely written during, his divorce from his long-time wife and musical partner, Linda. I started to make headway into some of his newer stuff like "Rumour and Sigh", and "Hand of Kindness". And then I went to see him live.
Oh, to see Richard Thompson live. It is a very, very bizarre experience to be a twenty-something RT fan at one of his shows. First of all, RT fans have all had the exact same experience of being obsessed with a strange musician that nobody else is really into. And they've gotten used to it, since most RT fans are about his age and have been following him for his entire career. So to just be in a crowd of other people who not only know this man and his music but are as into it as they are is a bit of a strange situation to begin with. When you add to the mix a member of the 'younger' generation, someone who looks remarkably what their kids would look like if the spoilt brats liked REAL music gotdammit, and who appears to be there of his own accord, appears to have spent his own money on tickets, and appears to be enjoying himself is almost too much for them to bear.
It usually happens after the show. I'll get a few strange looks and maybe an arched eyebrow or two before and during the performance, but afterwards when they've had one or two wine spritzers they will, without fail, literally line up to tell me how happy they are that someone my age actually likes their hero. "Of course", I say, "what's not to like?" And they will look at me with the eyes of someone who has thought that exact thought their entire lives but has
never found the approval from their peers that they know in their heart of hearts they should have received long ago. Or maybe they're just drunk - hard to say.
Either way, I would have been wise to read into the wisdom of those jaded eyes and simply given up on the guy. I should have never started to try to get my friends to understand the genius of RT. I mean, the proof is in the pudding, right? If he was really that great, he would be famous, right? A musician can't stick around for 25 years doing nothing but music without one popular and recognizable song, right? Even Tom Cochrane had a hit. And RT has never had one, so he can't be good, right?
The problem is, he is. He's incredible. He's smart, funny, guarded, outspoken, brilliant, worldly, an excellent writer*, an incredibly inventive musician, and just an all-around great guy. Genius? Maybe, maybe not. But he's been an incredible source of inspiration and I list him as one of my top five favorite guitarists.
* He has written a 25-part epic fictional story about being hired by Arnold Schwarzenneger and his now ex-wife shortly after being elected the Governator to teach him 'proper' English and do a bit of gardening that can be found on his web site. Really.
His guitar playing is legendary stuff. Basically, his guitar style is the very bizarre love child of Mark Knopfler, Steve Cropper, Marc Ribot, John Fahey, and your college English professor. You can't really understand the brilliance of what he does until you see him live, so look up some videos on YouTube - you'll get it. He plays dual-line acoustic finger-style songs in a style all his own, and then for good measure he straps on an electric guitar and blows your mind in a completely different style, again all his own. His electric solos are what I gravitate to and what I attempt to emulate: a beautiful mix of controlled chaos, dischordant clashing two-string bends, noise, piercing icepick notes waaay up the fretboard, all with a thorough and learned understanding of jazz progressions and modality. He really attacks his solos in a way that speaks to me in a profound way - I hope I kick as much ass at 60 as he does.
So I've found in the last 10 years of attempting to be a Richard Thompson evangelist that people will generally agree with me that he's an interesting guitarist and that he plays some killer solos live and that "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is a pretty fantastic song. But that's really about it. I have been very unsuccessful in attempting to convert anyone else into the true fanatic that I am. Here are the main criticisms that I hear when trying to get someone into RT:
1. Man, I can't stand his voice
2. His voice doesn't really sound right, does it?
3. What the hell is he talking about when he mentions (insert obscure British literary reference here)
4. That song sounds really gay
5. Soprano sax accompaniment? Seriously? Plus, his sidekick looks like a total nerd/pedophile (John Zorn. True.)
6. Why doesn't he have any hits? Oh.
7. Is his guitar in tune?
8. Man - that voice - it just...I mean...um....it...just...sounds....not - right?
9. Why do all of his songs make me want to kill myself?
Or, my favorite, mentioned unsolicited by my wife (and the inspiration for this blog):
10. Well, why the hell should I like a rock star who loves to sing madrigals and is obsessed with perfect fifths?
I have to give her credit for that one - pretty spot on ======>
And, to be honest, I can't really deny any of the above charges. His voice does take some getting used to. Some of his songs sound really gay.* Some of his instrumentation and album production choices have been a bit questionable. He is a nerd. You really need to have a working history of pre- and post-Industrial English society and literature to get the depth of some of his more obscure lyrics. Okay, a lot of his lyrics. And yes, he can be a bit bleak and most of his songs deal with the darker side of life and humanity.
*Tear-Stained Letter intro, I'm looking in your direction...
But I don't care. He has given me a lifetime of his music - and quite unselfishly, I might add - and two lifetimes worth of musical inspiration. Every time I think that I'm too old or too nerdy or too uncool or have too weird of a singing voice, I think of Richard Thompson and how he has overcome all of those obstacles, and probably didn't even think twice about it. He is completely unapologetic and completely non-pandering. I've mentioned a couple of times that he's never had a hit. It's not because his producers and record companies have never tried; it's that he always fucks up their program by making the song about lunatic rapists or puts an atonal guitar/synth solo in the middle of it.
I wear my RT badge proudly. I no longer really try to make anyone into a fan - that ship has sailed. I've become the jaded ex-folkie RT fans that look confusedly at me at his concerts. Even if no one else in the entire world - and it will sound cliche but I mean this completely - if no one else in the entire world believed in and loved Richard Thompson, I still would. His music, his passion, and his personality mean too much to me. He has, for me, the perfect mix of pride, confidence, and humility, and he is what I strive to emulate as a performer.
He has made a lifetime career out of being his own man and his own musician, and for that he has the respect of a great number of the musical community. For that of course he has my respect, but he also has my eternal gratitude.
music albums (presumably by artists signed to Columbia), picked the few that you were yearning for, spent your hard-earned lawn mowing money, mailed the card back, and waited 4 - 6 weeks for your CD's to arrive.
