Richard Thompson: Electric

"Guitar players will hear the pure, ringing tones conjured by 10 fingers that seem to be doing the work of 20 and say, 'Oh, for sure — that's Richard Thompson.' That nimble guitar work frames songs that are like perfectly crafted short stories, often dark and biting. Thompson started out in 1967 with the British folk-rock band Fairport Convention, followed by a long musical partnership with his then-wife, Linda Thompson. For the past 30 years, he's had a dynamic solo career, in which he's infused rock and jazz into traditional folk music. Thompson brought his acoustic Lowden guitar to All Things Considered to play selections from the new Electric — his 21st solo album — and speak with NPR's Melissa Block. ... '[I play] with a flatpick, and I play fingerstyle, as well — a pick and two other fingers. It's a very convenient, useful thing: There are some things you can do that you can't do with any other style. ... I'm basically self-taught: I did some classical lessons very, very early on, but there's big gaps. So I'm always trying to learn about harmony. In the last five years or so, I've been listening to classical composers — people like Benjamin Britten, Shostakovich — just because I love the harmony and the kind of dissonance that they put into their music'" ("Richard Thompson: The Acoustics behind 'Electric,'" All Things Considered, 3/4/13).

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