Background
After the marked lack of success achieved by his first album, Henry the Human Fly , British singer-songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson started a personal and professional relationship with Linda Peters, a session singer. I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight was the first album by the duo of Richard and Linda Thompson.
Sessions for the album took place at the Sound Techniques studio in Chelsea, London, over a few weeks during spring 1973, with house engineer John Wood co-producing with Thompson. The album, provisionally titled Hokey Pokey, was recorded on a shoestring budget of £2,500; owing to vinyl shortages, it was not released until 1974. [2]
Where his first album was treated harshly by the critics, the second was eventually hailed as a masterpiece. It is now regarded as a classic of English folk rock and one of the Thompsons' finest achievements.
In the sleeve notes for the 2004 CD re-release, David Suff writes: "Throughout the album Richard's sombre, dark songs are driven by his masterful understated guitar and Linda's haunting spiritual vocals. The songs detail a beautiful yet desolate world of life before the fall, the lives of the homeless, the thief and the inebriate. The songs are thoroughly English in their mood and responsibility, wry observations of the hopelessness of the human condition." [2] Considering the song "End of the Rainbow", Suff writes:
Richard denies that the song is totally pessimistic, "there's always hope in the third verse of my songs" yet the overall effect is a magnificent evocation of disillusionment. Thompson's songs are despairing but not self-pitying, leaving the listener with an abiding sense of peace and, paradoxically hope. [2]
Reception
Initially ignored by reviewers, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight later came to be highly regarded. Robert Christgau rated it highly when it was re-released as one-half of Live! (More or Less) noting that "[they] don't sentimentalize about time gone—they simply encompass it in an endless present." [6] When it was re-released in 1984, along with other albums in the Thompsons' catalogue, Kurt Loder writing in Rolling Stone described it as a "timeless masterpiece" with "not a single track that's less than luminous". [8]
More recent reviews are equally complimentary. AllMusic notes that the album is "nothing short of a masterpiece" and calls it "music of striking and unmistakable beauty". [3] Q (May 2007, p. 135): "After his 1971 departure from Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson found his ideal foil in recent bride Linda. A hugely inventive guitarist, he gives full vent to his talent on this dark, brooding album. Indeed, he never quite recaptured the murky demons inside the likes of 'Withered and Died' ever again." In the 2004 CD re-release, Chris Jones at the BBC noted that "Bright Lights...performs the most perfect balancing act between hard-bitten cynicism and honest humanism." [11]
It was voted number 814 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). [12] In 2003 the album was placed at number 479 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and was placed at number 485 in the 2020 edition. [13] [14] The album also appeared in the Mojo "100 Greatest Albums Ever Made". [2]
Writing for Something Else! in 2018, Preston Frazier said, "'The Great Valerio' is just one gem among gems. Richard Thompson's writing is masterful, painting in broad, vivid strokes. Time indeed stands still as Linda Thompson tells the vivid tale, with a hint of detached anxiety... Featuring only Linda's voice and Richard Thompson's Kensington-style picked acoustic, 'The Great Valerio' is dark, yet vivid as it leads the listener to imagine the great fall. Linda Thompson never oversells the proposition, using her voice like the fine instrument it is." [15]
Richard Thompson is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
Waterloo Sunset is an album by Barb Jungr released in 2003.
Fledg'ling Records is a British independent record label founded in 1991. The label has re-released some albums previously issued by Hokey Pokey Records which was also run by the Fledg'ling founder—David Suff. David Suff having been half of the team running the Richard Thompson fanzine—"Hokey Pokey". Both record labels specialise in classic and new British folk and folk-rock. Fledg'ling is based in London.
Linda Thompson is an English singer-songwriter.
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.
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.
First Light is the fourth album by folk rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson. It was released in 1978 on Chrysalis Records.
Sunnyvista is the fifth album by Richard and Linda Thompson, released in 1979, by Chrysalis Records.
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."
(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).
Live! is an album released in 1976 under Richard Thompson's name, but mostly consisting of work actually recorded with his then wife as Richard and Linda Thompson.
Strict Tempo! is the second studio album by Richard Thompson, released in 1981. Apart from soundtracks, it is Thompson's only entirely instrumental studio album. The album consists of some of the artist's favourite tunes, all rendered as instrumentals and all arranged for guitar, mandolin, and other instruments played by Thompson. The only other musician is drummer Dave Mattacks.
Small Town Romance is the first live album by British singer/songwriter Richard Thompson.
Watching the Dark is an album by Richard Thompson released in 1993. The three-CD retrospective set was compiled with Thompson's co-operation and consent. It runs from 1969, when Thompson was a member of Fairport Convention, through to 1992. However, it is not sequenced in chronological order.
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.
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.
RT- The Life and Music of Richard Thompson is a 5-CD box set by Richard Thompson, released in February 2006. It gives an extensive overview of Thompson's long career without including content from any of his mainstream albums.
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.
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.
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.
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