The band was very much perceived as "Richard's band" until he split in early '71 to go his own way. By the time he left, Fairport was already being credited with having invented a new genre of music, British folk-rock.

1971 saw Richard on tour in America with Sandy Denny, mixing it up in the English folk scene with Shirley Collins, the Albion Band, and others, and releasing the critically-demolished solo album "Henry the Human Fly," believed to be the worst-selling album in Warner Brothers history.

Singer Linda Peters first hooked up with Richard sometime in 1971, and first recorded with him in 1972 in a Fairport alumni album of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly era rock n' roll songs called "The Bunch." They married in July '72, and one of folk-rock's legendary musical duos was born. Richard wrote many of his greatest songs during this period 1972-1982, during which time Richard and Linda Thompson released a number of albums, two of which rank among the very best folk-rock albums ever, "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" and "Shoot Out the Lights." Both albums so beggar description by way of superlatives that they really must be heard to be appreciated. They are the gems of one of the best kept secrets in pop music history.

After a messy split with Linda in 1982 (at the end of which tour I myself first saw Richard Thompson play live, as a solo act in a small club), Richard started his solo career playing with his own band, a career which has lasted up until the time of this writing. Although Richard has never made it big nor scored with a radio hit, his following has steadily grown from cult status to the point where he can sellout clubs on the folk circuit or play at larger venues almost everytime he tours, depending on whether he's touring solo acoustic or with the full band.

During this solo period 1982-2001, Richard has been very active, not only putting out albums and touring with the likes of Fairport alums and friends Simon Nicol, Gerry Conway, John Kirkpatrick, Pat Donaldson, and others; with the folk duo Clive Gregson and Christine Collister; and with Pentangle alum bassist extraordinaire Danny Thompson; but he has also been in high demand as a much-sought-after session player, lending his very distinctive guitar playing talents to recordings by Bonnie Raitt, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Crowded House, Syd Straw, David Thomas & the Pedestrians, the Golden Palominos, and many others besides.

Richard Thompson's songs have been covered by hundreds of other artists as well, including Sandy Denny, Mary Black, Bonnie Raitt, Robyn Hitchcock, Elvis Costello, Beausoleil, Jo-El Sonnier, Arlo Guthrie, Ben Demerath, and Lucy Kaplansky.

Richard Thompson is a songwriter's songwriter, combining elements of folk, country, pop, rock and roll, and Scottish bagpipe tunes among other influences, in his music, and whose songs range from the sentimental and the whimsical ("1952 Vincent Black Lightning," "Don't Sit On My Jimmy Shands," "Hokey Pokey," "Sunnyvista"), to the sublime and beautiful ("How I Wanted To," "Withered and Died," "From Galway to Graceland," "Beeswing," "Just the Motion," "Waltzing's For Dreamers"); from the gayest and most danceable pop melodies ("Tear-Stained Letter," "The Little Beggar Girl," "You're Going to Need Somebody," "Saturday Rolling Around"), to the darkest gloomiest songs ever ("Never Again," "When the Spell Is Broken," "Calvary Cross," "The End of the Rainbow," a dirge written on the occasion of the birth of his first child); to just plain out-and-out rockers that blow you away ("Wall of Death," "I Can't Wake Up to Save My Life," "No More Gypsy Love Songs," and his stunning trademark song "Shoot Out the Lights"). The breadth, the passion, the intelligence, and the power of his songwriting at its best is just extraordinary.

I remember well hearing Dar Williams at a workshop stage at Falcon Ridge a number of years back, remarking on the odd paradox which is Richard Thompson: so very witty and charming in person, so full of good graces and good humor; and yet so very dark and foreboding in so much of his songwriting, and even so strangely violent and angry-sounding in the bittermost sharpness of his most soul-searching songs. As an aside, Dar's song "Mortal City" has always reminded me of Thompson's "Ghosts in the Wind" and "Love in a Faithless Country."

The only other songwriter who comes to my mind as even coming close to matching this almost savagely bitter-sweet combination of being able to write really sweet, really funny, and yet also really dark and really sad songs, as well as songs that just plain rock out, for me would have be our own Nerissa Nields. I truly admire any musical artist being able to look at life so profoundly from "Both Sides Now," with such balance, such insight into our shared humanity, and such steadiness of vision. RT and NN are both tops with me, as songwriters go. They're both folk classics for the ages.

A bit of good advice for fans of the Kennedys: if you love what Pete & Maura are able to do as jangle poets, songwriters, singers, and guitar playing fiends, you most definitely should check out their 70's forerunners in each and every one of those four categories, Richard and Linda Thompson, in their albums "Hokey Pokey," "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight," "Pour Down Like Silver," "First Light," "Sunnyvista," and "Shoot Out the Lights." I'm guessing you'll dig it, and you might even totally love it. RT, like Pete, has also released an album of solo acoustic guitar, "In Strict Tempo."

And one last word: THE classic Fairport Convention chestnut, which is sung as the tear-wrenching closing song at every year's Cropredy Festival in England, is "Meet On the Ledge," a song written by RT when he was yet a teenager, long before he had mastered his performing chops and honed to perfection his songwriting skills. "Meet on the Ledge" in its sentiment is very like TN's "I Still Believe in My Friends":

"Meet on the ledge, we're gonna meet on the ledge, When my time is up I'm gonna see all my friends; Meet on the ledge, we're gonna meet on the ledge: If you really mean it, it all comes 'round again."

Well that was a labour of love, and there you have it.

© 2001