1000 Years of Popular Music
Richard Thompson
Producer: Simon Tassano, Wes Dorman
Cooking Vinyl Records (USA), 2006
2 CD
Catalogue #: RT1000SP
EAN: 0711297320053
UPC: 711297320053
You save: 20%
Personnel: Richard Thompson (vocals, acoustic guitar); Judith Owen (vocals); Debra Dobkin (percussion).
An ambitious and thoroughly charming undertaking, the two-CD/one-DVD 1000 YEARS OF POPULAR MUSIC finds lauded British folk-rock singer/guitarist Richard Thompson live in San Francisco, performing songs that date from 1260 up to the early 21st century. Aided by keyboardist/vocalist Judith Owen and drummer/vocalist Debra Dobkin, Thompson revisits medieval England with the joyous "Summer Is Icumen In" and the lilting "King Henry," working his way to Gilbert & Sullivan by the end of the first disc with the jaunty "There Is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast" from THE MIKADO.
The second disc features a spare take on Cole Porter's "Night and Day," and brings things into the early 2000s with, oddly enough, a surprisingly straight-faced acoustic takes on Britney Spear's "Oops!...I Did It Again" and Bowling for Soup's "1985." Simultaneously lighthearted and reverent, this adventurous outing reinforces Thompson's status as a dynamic and unpredictable artist.
Tracklist
Richard Thompson
Richard Thompson started his career in the late 1960s as Fairport Convention's precocious guitar whiz. His subsequent solo career bears echoes of Fairport's folk-rock sound, but with a much darker, more deliciously twisted sensibility. Thompson is equally skilled as composer and guitarist, as borne out by his much-lauded recordings both with his then-wife Linda and on his own.
