MAESTRO : Great another Richard Thompson from his prime 1985

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Barrymore's Music Hall, Ottawa, Canada, 1985

Paul says: In the BBC poll I did back in February 2025, Peter Gabriel got the most votes. The second most went to Richard Thompson. So I posted a couple things from Gabriel recently, and now here's something from Thompson. More albums from more musical acts will be coming soon. This is a full concert from 1985.

From about 1972 to 1982, Richard Thompson was in a duo with his then-wife, Linda Thompson. After their marriage and musical partnership broke up in 1982, he got serious with a solo career. In 1983, he released the album "Hand of Kindness," and then in 1985, he released the album "Across a Crowded Room." This concert features him on tour promoting that latter album. For the tour, he recruited another male and female musical duo to join his band, Clive Gregson and Christine Collister. Collister, in particular, added female vocals that kind of filled the role Linda Thompson used to fill. Both Gregson and Collister got their own lead vocal songs during this concert, with Collister singing "Warm Love Gone Cold" and Gregson singing "Summer Rain."

In my opinion, Thompson's songwriting was especially good during this time period, with his 1982 album with Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights," being my favorite. It also was his most poppy and accessible. That continued with these albums. So I think this concert is an excellent introduction to his solo career, with him playing the best songs from his two recent solo albums plus key songs from earlier in his career.

I believe this concert was almost the end of the tour, with just one more concert a day later. So, to document the tour, this concert was recorded for both audio and video. A version edited down to an hour was shown on British TV, called "Across a Crowded Room Live." That also was broadcast on BBC radio. Seven of the tracks from it appeared on the DVD portion of the album "Live at the BBC" in 2011. Then, in 2019, the full concert was released, called "Across a Crowded Room - Live at Barrymore's 1985." Normally, I don't like to post stuff that's officially released already, but I'm doing that here since it's a good way to start a series of Thompson's BBC albums, the vast majority of which is unreleased.  

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long. All songs Richard Thompson except wehere noted 

01 Fire in the Engine Room 
02 She Twists the Knife 
03 Shoot Out the Lights
04 You Don't Say 
05 Warm Love Gone Cold (with Christine Collister )
06 Wall of Death 
07 How I Wanted To 
08 Little Blue Number 
09 When the Spell Is Broken 
10 Did She Jump or Was She Pushed 
11 The Wrong Heartbeat 
12 talk 
13 Summer Rain (with Clive Gregson )
14 For Shame of Doing Wrong
15 I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
16 talk 
17 Nearly in Love 
18 Love in a Faithless Country 
19 I Ain't Going to Drag My Feet No More 
20 talk 
21 Tear Stained Letter 
22 talk 
23 Withered and Died 
24 Skull and Cross Bones 

I have said before (ad nauseum - ED - RUDE!) that it was artist Graham Dean who turned me on to Richard Thompson’s solo work and Daring Adventures, Across a Crowded Room You Me Us etc all mean(t) a great deal to me and I have followed everything he has done before and since but this is around the time I first got the bug again and this set is peerless! Turn it up and dance around the living room to Fire in The Engine Room but watch out for she will twist the knife again . . . . . . .