Walking on a wire (Richard & Linda Thompson) (LP 4646)

Richard & Linda Thompson   Shoot Out the Lights (CD, Hannibal Records, 1982) ****  

Genre: Folk rock 

Places I remember: Hope family collection

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Wall of Death

Gear costume: Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7

Active compensatory factors: Richard Thompson and his wife Linda had a lengthy back catalogue before all turned sour in their relationship. Shoot Out the Lights was their final album together.

It's more rock than folk rock when Richard sings, and more folk than rock when Linda takes over the vocals. Her singing is a joy - even if she's singing about painful circumstances.

The AllMusic review highlights the production by Joe Boyd (clean, uncluttered), the arrangements (Spartan), and Richard Thompson's guitar work (wiry,remarkable, displaying a blazing technical skill that never interfered with his melodic sensibilities).

Where do they all belong? The only album of theirs in my collection.

Fine horsemen (Lal and Mike Waterson) (LP 227)

Lal and Mike Waterson Bright Phoebus (CD - Domino Recording, 1972) ****

Genre: Folk

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records (Auckland)  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: The Scarecrow (is scary man!)



Gear costume: Winifer Odd  

Active compensatory factors: Slight detour here because this album came up for discussion in the MNAC (Monday night album club) I contribute to with some family in the UK.

Unusually, I already owned a copy so in the interests of killing two birds with one stone...

Actually death, killing and foreboding filthy weather are heavily represented as themes in the song lyrics of the album: The Scarecrow (an old man hanging from a pole); Never The Same (Rosemary's sitting in a shower of rain and it'll kill her); Fine Horsemen (my family's dead my heart is in the ground); Winifer Odd (she waited for death to come); Child Among The Weeds; and Danny Rose dies dramatically in his automobile.

Balancing this is the sunshine that creeps through at various times on Shady Lady, Bright Phoebus, Red Wine Promises, and Fine Horsemen.

Oh and, yes, ha, birds are in plentiful supply as well - raven wings, starlings, crows, sparrows, turtle doves. 

The album isn't without humour thanks to opener The Rubber Band but from then on it's of the creepy macabre black kind (the end of Winifer Odd for instance with the ambulance arriving).

Apologies for coming over all English teacher like, but I love the lyrics to the album - they often feel like very old folk songs (The Scarecrow, Winifer Odd) and they often contain some deceptively sharp turn of phrase - Winifer Odd was born on one cold May morning in June.

Instrumentally the album is stunning - but with folk royalty all aboard, it would be wouldn't it: Martin Carthy; Richard Thompson; various Steeleye Spanites - Maddy Prior/ Tim Hart/ Ashley Hutchings join in the fun.

But the real stars here are Lal and Mike's songs and vocals - real, earthy, rural, unrepentently provincial. There's substance and honesty in this singing that is rare in this day and age.

Where do they all belong? It's a stand alone, yet deeply entrenched in the folk tradition.