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When we speak, he’s midway through recording the audiobook, and recently had to read the chapter about that May morning.

The new album was recorded at Townhouse Three; it's hardly a big production job, just a group of people playing together. Don't expect to see Kylie gyrating around a morris dancing troupe on "Top of the Pops" quite yet (although you never know, it could happen). Prior to this she covered global government debt from London, with a particular focus on the debt crisis in Greece, Ukraine and Venezuela. Photograph: Ali Smith/The Observer View image in fullscreen Richard Thompson photographed this month in Montclair, New Jersey. You could almost guess what guitar he plays just from listening to it on any of his albums — a Maple-neck Fender, in this case a Strat from around 1958.

Boyd tells me of one gig in LA where Carly Simon, Linda Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur were in the front row to support her, holding hands. There have been several tribute compilations of other artists' interpretations of his work, including: Capitol's Beat the Retreat: Songs by Richard Thompson and Green Linnet's The World Is a Wonderful Place: The Songs of Richard Thompson, both released in 1994. Thompson took to the road with a stripped-down " power trio" band on a multi-month tour on both sides of the Atlantic to promote the new album. He’s worked with Werner Herzog and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, and kept busy in the pandemic, releasing two EPs ( Bloody Noses and Live from London), and doing live streams from home for the Royal Albert Hall. Chrysalis Records did not take up their option to renew the contract, and the Thompsons found themselves without one.

For this reason, the Thompsons' fans often refer to the Shoot Out the Lights tour as "The Tour from Hell". He's one of those names who are often quoted as 'influential', yet his public profile is only a couple of feet above sea-level. Before this, he served as the FT’s chief political correspondent, news editor, managing editor of FT. Thompson's lyrics expressed a rather dismal world view, and it has been suggested that the bleak subject matter of his songs helped to keep his recordings off the hit parade. A track from the album, Time To Ring Some Changes is included in the 2009 Topic Records 70-year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten as track thirteen on the sixth CD.

He’d hear her Buddy Holly and Elvis records through the bedroom wall, and smell her Gauloise cigarettes. and Acoustic Rarities, an album of new recordings of some of the more obscure songs in the Thompson catalogue, some previously existing only as cover versions. The resulting album, First Light, was warmly received by critics [18] but did not sell particularly well. The Thompsons, now a couple for professional purposes only, toured the United States in support of the album, their only American tour together. In 1983 and 1984, he toured the US and Europe with the Richard Thompson Big Band, which included two saxophone players in addition to the more usual rhythm section, second guitar and accordion.