Hokey Pokey (album)

Last updated
Hokey Pokey
Hokey Pokey.jpg
Studio album by
Richard and Linda Thompson
ReleasedApril 1975
RecordedSeptember - October 1974
StudioSound Techniques, London
Genre Folk rock
Length36:02 (original)
52:36 (2004 reissue)
Label Island
Producer Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol
Richard and Linda Thompson chronology
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
(1974)		Hokey Pokey
(1975)		 Pour Down Like Silver
(1975)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [1]
Christgau's Record Guide A [2]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [3]

Hokey Pokey is the second album by the British duo of singer Linda Thompson and singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson. It was recorded in the autumn of 1974 and released in the year 1975.

Contents

Listeners keen to try to find connections between the albums by the Thompsons and their personal lives may be confused by the delays between writing, recording and release of the early albums. I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight was conceived and recorded prior to the Thompsons' embracing of Islam, but the album's release was substantially delayed. By the time that album was released the Thompsons were living in an Islamic commune in London.

In the meantime, the Thompsons had toured as a trio with Fairport Convention guitarist Simon Nicol. Nicol recalls that period: (in Patrick Humphries' biography of Richard Thompson)

we did the folk clubs as a trio ... It was just after they got married, and it was lovely. I look back on that period with great affection ... It was really powerful. You could hear a pin drop at most of those gigs. Rapt attention. Two acoustic guitars, and the bass pedals went through a little backline combo amp, we’d use house microphones ... It was stuff from Bright Lights ... and Hokey Pokey, in the process of creation, Hank Williams’ songs ...[ citation needed ]

So much of the material on the Hokey Pokey album was written sometime before the album was recorded and even predates the conversion to Islam. To add to the confusion the release of the eventual album was again delayed and so the song and the themes of the album lagged behind the development of the Thompsons's personal lives.

The album is thematically cohesive for the most part. The first eight songs present a bleak world view with constant images of people living a shallow existence and seeking some kind of gratification - often in drugs or sexual encounters ("Hokey Pokey", "I'll Regret It All in the Morning", "Old Man Inside a Young Man", "Georgie on a Spree"), or experiencing a hard and cruel life with the cruelty often being dealt out by their fellow humans ("Smiffy's Glass Eye", "The Sun Never Shines on the Poor", "I'll Regret It All in the Morning", "Old Man Inside a Young Man"). "Never Again" (originally written in the aftermath of Fairport Convention's devastating tour bus crash in 1969) portrays an old man looking back on a life devastated by the unexpected loss of loved ones.

"A Heart Needs a Home", the ninth song, serves as Richard Thompson's declaration of faith whilst also harking back to the unfulfilling existence portrayed in the preceding songs:

...I came to you when
No one could hear me
I’m sick and weary
Of being alone
Empty streets and
Hungry faces
The world’s no place when
You’re on your own
A heart needs a home.

In terms of musical style Thompson's songwriting on this album reflects a number of British styles despite not being in the English folk-rock style of "Bright Lights": Music Hall, English hymns, traditional brass bands, pub sing-alongs and even the double entendres of George Formby are all discernible. In many cases, Thompson juxtaposes an upbeat tune with a bleak lyric.

It was voted number 604 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). [4]

Track listing

All songs written by Richard Thompson except as noted.

  1. "Hokey Pokey (The Ice Cream Song)"
  2. "I'll Regret It All in the Morning"
  3. "Smiffy's Glass Eye"
  4. "The Egypt Room"
  5. "Never Again"
  6. "Georgie on a Spree"
  7. "Old Man Inside a Young Man"
  8. "The Sun Never Shines on the Poor"
  9. "A Heart Needs a Home"
  10. "Mole in a Hole" (Mike Waterson)

2004 Island CD reissue

  1. "Wishing" (Buddy Holly, Bobby Montgomery)
  2. "I'm Turning Off a Memory" (Merle Haggard)
  3. "A Heart Needs a Home"
  4. "Hokey Pokey (The Ice Cream Song)"
  5. "It'll Be Me" (Jack Clement)

All extra tracks are live and previously unreleased.

Personnel

Related Research Articles

Richard Thompson (musician) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, guitarist

Richard Thompson is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

<i>What We Did on Our Holidays</i> 1969 studio album by Fairport Convention

What We Did on Our Holidays is the second album by British band Fairport Convention, released in 1969. It was their first album to feature singer-songwriter Sandy Denny. The album also showed a move towards the folk rock for which the band became noted, including tracks later to become perennial favourites such as "Fotheringay" and the song traditionally used to close live concerts, "Meet on the Ledge".

Linda Thompson (singer) British singer

Linda Thompson is an English folk rock singer.

<i>I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight</i> 1974 studio album by Richard and Linda Thompson

I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is the second album released by Richard Thompson and the first including and credited with his then wife, Linda Thompson, as Richard and Linda Thompson. It was released by Island Records in the UK in 1974. Although never commercially successful and critically ignored upon its release, it is now considered by several critics to be a masterpiece and one of the finest works of both Richard and Linda singularly or together.

<i>Pour Down Like Silver</i> 1975 studio album by Richard and Linda Thompson

Pour Down Like Silver is the third album by the British duo of singer-songwriter and guitarist Richard and vocalist Linda Thompson. It was recorded in the summer of 1975 and released in November 1975.

<i>Sunnyvista</i> 1979 studio album by Richard and Linda Thompson

Sunnyvista, released in October 1979, is the fifth album by Richard and Linda Thompson.

<i>Shoot Out the Lights</i> 1982 studio album by Richard and Linda Thompson

Shoot Out the Lights is the sixth and final album by British husband-and-wife rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson. It was produced by Joe Boyd and released in 1982 on his Hannibal label. A critically acclaimed work, AllMusic's Mark Deming noted that Shoot Out the Lights has "often been cited as Richard Thompson's greatest work, and it's difficult for anyone who has heard his body of work to argue the point."

<i>(guitar, vocal)</i> 1976 compilation album by Richard Thompson

(guitar, vocal) is a 1976 album by Richard Thompson. It was released by Island Records as a career retrospective after he and his wife Linda had gone into semi-retirement from the business of making and performing music following the release of Pour Down Like Silver (1975).

<i>Strict Tempo!</i> 1981 studio album by Richard Thompson

Strict Tempo! is an instrumental album by Richard Thompson released in 1981. Although the album is technically Thompson's second studio album, it is typically not referred to as such, with its follow-up Hand of Kindness usually receiving that label and the numbering of his discography continuing from there.

<i>Small Town Romance</i> 1984 live album by Richard Thompson

Small Town Romance is a live album by British singer/songwriter Richard Thompson.

<i>Watching the Dark</i> 1993 compilation album by Richard Thompson

Watching the Dark is an album by Richard Thompson released in 1993.

<i>Two Letter Words</i> 1996 live album by Richard Thompson

Two Letter Words is a live album by Richard Thompson.

<i>The Best of Richard & Linda Thompson: The Island Record Years</i> 2000 compilation album by Richard and Linda Thompson

Island Records issued this compilation in 2000 as the first step in a program to re-master and re-issue the albums that Richard and Linda Thompson had cut for them.
Island's UK catalog number was IMCD 270/542456-2, and the US catalog number was 314 542 456-2

<i>The Chrono Show</i> 2004 live album by Richard Thompson

The Chrono Show is a live album by Richard Thompson. The album is compiled from recordings made during Thompson's 2004 tour of America, and features songs from Thompson's back catalog, most of them written prior to 1983 and arranged in mostly chronological order.

<i>No Roses</i> 1971 studio album by Shirley Collins and The Albion Country Band

No Roses is an album by Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band. It was recorded at Sound Techniques, and Air Studios in London, in the summer of 1971. It was produced by Sandy Roberton and Ashley Hutchings. It was released in October 1971 on the Pegasus label.

<i>RT- The Life and Music of Richard Thompson</i> 2006 box set by Richard Thompson

RT- The Life and Music of Richard Thompson is a box set by Richard Thompson, released in February 2006.

Simon Nicol Musical artist

Simon John Breckenridge Nicol is an English guitarist, singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He was a founding member of British folk rock group Fairport Convention and is the only founding member still in the band. He has also been involved with the Albion Band and a wide range of musical projects, both as a collaborator, producer and as a solo artist. He has received several awards for his work and career.

Fairport Chronicles is a 1976 compilation album of the British folk-rock band Fairport Convention, including songs from 1968 to the departure of the last original member in 1972. The double album is unique in that it was only released in the USA, features original material and American covers over the traditional material usually associated with Fairport, and includes songs from side projects. All of the material was originally issued in the USA on A&M Records, which explains the exclusion of songs taken from their first, pre-Sandy Denny album, which was only later released in the United States.

Walking on a Wire is a 2009 compilation CD set of songs by Richard Thompson. It was released on August 26, 2009, a set of four CDs. The set contains the bulk of Thompson's songs, but contains no unreleased material.

<i>Live at the BBC</i> (Richard & Linda Thompson album) 2011 live album by Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson - Live at the BBC is a compilation of audio and video recordings made by Richard Thompson for the BBC. The set consists of three CDs and a DVD. The included material was recorded over a number of years; the earliest tracks date back to 1973, the most recent to 2009. Most of the material was recorded for various TV and radio shows broadcast by the BBC. About 40% of the included material was performed by Richard and Linda Thompson.

References

  1. ↑ Hartenbach, Brett (2011). "Hokey Pokey - Richard & Linda Thompson | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
  2. ↑ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: T". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies . Ticknor & Fields. ISBN   089919026X . Retrieved March 16, 2019– via robertchristgau.com.
  3. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. p. 3074. ISBN   978-0857125958.
  4. ↑ Colin Larkin, ed. (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 201. ISBN   0-7535-0493-6.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.