Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: 1996-1997 | Albums That Should Exist

 

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: 1996-1997

Paul says: Here's another BBC album by singer-songwriter Richard Thompson. This one is a collection of studio sessions.

In 1996, Thompson released the double album "You? Me? Us?" In my opinion, it wasn't as strong as most of his previous solo albums, and probably would have been better as a single album. Then in 1997, he released the album "Industry," with Danny Thompson (no relation). Half of the songs were his, and half were instrumentals by Danny. The songs by Richard were great, but the instrumentals mostly seemed like filler. 

Considering both of those albums were flawed, it's nice to have this collection, because it mostly consists of the strongest songs from both of those albums. There are a couple of songs from other albums, such as "Beeswing" and "Keep Your Distance," but not many. I count five songs from "You? Me? Us?" and three songs from "Industry." One song, "Bathsheba Smiles," was unreleased at the time and would appear on his next studio album, "Mock Tudor."

Most of the songs, tracks two through seven and nine through eleven, come from two sessions on the Andy Kershaw radio show. The first track is from the Bob Harris radio show, and the last one is from the Cambridge Folk Festival. (Highlights or even full sets of that festival are often broadcast by the BBC.) All of those songs are unreleased. That leaves just one officially released song, "Lotteryland." It also comes from one of the Andy Kershaw sessions, but it came out on the "The Live and Music Of" box set.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Beeswing 
02 Cold Kisses 
03 Dark Hand Over My Heart 
04 Hide It Away 
05 The Ghost of You Walks 
06 Train Don't Leave 
07 She Cut Off Her Long Silken Hair 
08 Lotteryland 
09 Drifting through the Days
10 Bathsheba Smiles
11 Keep Your Distance 
12 Sweetheart on the Barricade 

Some favourite Richard songs here from Dark Hand to Ghost of you and from You Me Us - She Cut Off Her Long Silken Hair! I loved it when it came out and couldn’t stop playing it but Paul may be right and that it isn’t in the top ten of Thompson albums but heck it’s awful close! Superb!