BRATTLEBORO-A legend is coming to Brattleboro.
I don't write those words lightly. I have been a Richard Thompson fan since the old Fairport Convention days, in 1967, when the band kind of invented folk-rock. I was out of the country for the Richard and Linda Thompson days, when he and his now-ex-wife tore out the hearts of each other and their fans.
I picked up Thompson again when I came back to this country, seeing him over and over again at the Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts, as well as chasing him around New England from Tanglewood to Keene, New Hampshire.
Thompson is a god of both the acoustic and electric guitar, a gifted touring performer, a brilliant (and sometimes dark) songwriter, and a witty raconteur.
Now 76 years old, he's going on 60 years of writing, singing, playing, recording, and touring. Last year he released his 19th solo album, Ship to Shore.
He will be playing at the Stone Church in Brattleboro on Saturday, Nov. 8, and, no, you probably can't get a ticket. Seating capacity is 200, and last month, when the tickets went on sale, they sold out within 10 minutes.
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When people talk of Thompson, they mention him in the same class of singer-songwriters as Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and Randy Newman, and that was not me saying it, it was Bonnie Raitt. She's right.
Thompson was given an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen of England. He can play electric guitar until the rafters come down, and no one enjoys shredding a guitar more than he does. But he can do acoustic until you cry.
His "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," a song about a motorcycle, a villain, and a red-headed girl, was included in Time magazine's "All-TIME 100 Songs" list of the best English-language musical compositions released between 1923 and 2011. It includes the immortal lines, "Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme." The song has been covered by so many artists that Google just throws up its hands.
Thompson has also written one of the most beautiful folk ballads of the last two centuries, "Beeswing," which is also the title of his autobiography, Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967–1975.
What is it about the poetry in "Beeswing" that always makes me cry? For one thing, it's the way that Thompson crams an extra syllable into the words of the last line of the second stanza; it gives me chills:
Brown hair zig-zag round her face
And a look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights
There was an animal in her eyes.
The song contains great empathy. The woman he's writing about is a wild child who ends up sleeping rough with only a wolfhound for a companion.
And they say her flower is faded now
Hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay
For the chains you refuse.
Thompson knows that the chains you refuse - a straight job, a husband, all the conventions of society - might cost you everything, and yet you willingly choose them because, otherwise, life becomes too dull to bear.
His understanding of women is very deep. Another song of his that I love is the beautifully melodic "From Galway to Graceland," about a woman so obsessed with Elvis Presley that she imagines she is married to him and travels from Ireland to Graceland to live out her life at his grave. The amount of empathy in this song breaks your heart open.
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Among the stranger things that has happened to me recently is the mysterious case of the missing Richard Thompson CD, which turned out not to be lost at all.
To understand this experience, you need to know the name Willi Carlisle, an up-and-coming irreverent singer-songwriter whose work I really enjoy.
I listen to music in my car. And being something of a technophobe, I depend on my car's CD player. When I bought Ship to Shore, I put it on and was bewildered when Willi Carlisle came out. I tried other CDs, but no Willi. I kept trying with "Ship to Shore," but it always came out Willi. Even other Richard Thompson CDs played Richard Thompson. But Ship to Shore? Always Willi.
I thought I had been sent a bad CD. I bought another CD, this time direct from Thompson's own website, but same deal. I was getting spooked.
I got in touch with Thompson's record company and explained the situation. They flipped out.
Matt Etgen of New West Records suggested that maybe I had been sent a bootleg copy. I was told to photograph the production number on the back of the CD and send it to him. I did. It was the right production number. Not a bootleg.
"We released this album in May 2024, and this is the first complaint I've heard about this," Etgen wrote to me. "And RT has already toured this record extensively. It's a mystery for sure and one I would love to solve."
I sent one of my Thompson CDs to Matt, just in case he thought I was making it up, or maybe that I was nuts.
"Bad news - we received your CD yesterday, put it right into the car CD player on the way home, and it was Richard Thompson, not only the music but also the digital info that came up on screen," Matt wrote back. "I'm relieved it's not a real issue. And that makes sense because we've not had any other complaints of this sort."
Then his "absolutely verified Richard Thompson CD" arrived in the mail. I put it in the car player. Out came Willi.
"Your car may need an exorcism hahaha," Matt wrote.
The next step - maybe you're ahead of me on this one - was to try a different CD player. Lo and behold, when I tried the one in the house, out came, as promised, Richard Thompson.
The new CD is lovely. Among the 12 songs is "Singapore Sadie," a tribute to his newest wife, Zara Phillips, who sings harmony on the record. ("Singapore Sadie is three times the lady....") There's the dark side of fame coming out in "Life's a Bloody Show." And there's an upbeat tribute to being on the road, "We Roll."
If you weren't one of the lucky ones to get a ticket to the Stone Church this Saturday, maybe you should buy the CD. Or check Richard Thompson out on YouTube.
Or just know that for one night only, a legend will be singing in Brattleboro.
Joyce Marcel is a reporter and columnist for The Commons, where she regularly covers politics, homelessness, economic development issues, and the arts.
This Arts column by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.