Paul says : In 2020, the worst year of the Covid pandemic, Richard Thompson performed a few home concerts that were broadcast over the Internet. I could be wrong, but I believe I've already posted all but one of them at this blog. Here, finally, is the last one. Richard Thompson was a member of Fairport Convention from 1967 to 1971, the most celebrated years of the band's long musical history. For this solo acoustic home concert, he decided to perform just songs from his Fairport Convention era. I'm not aware of any other concert where he had this exclusive focus, this this is a special treat for both Richard Thompson solo and Fairport Convention fans.
The reason I've never posted this before is because when the concert happened, it was one of those "pay to view" deals. I don't want to deny Thompson of a revenue stream, especially considering it's become increasingly hard for musicians to make a living. But I figure enough time has passed, and I checked the download page for this, and it's defunct. There's no way to pay for it. (By the way, if anyone has any more of these types of "pay to view" shows from artists that are also expired, please let me know so I can help share them.)
Thompson performed the concert with just his acoustic guitar. Because it was in his home, there was no audience. However, his girlfriend Zara Phillips, who is a talented musician in her own right, joined him near the end of the concert to sing song harmony vocals. He largely played the songs in chronological order of the years the songs were recorded. However, he saved up some harmony one for the end with Phillips.
This concert is especially interesting because Thompson only sang on a minority of songs when he was in Fairport Convention, since the band had other sings, especially Sandy Denny. But in this concert, he sang some songs in public for the very first time that were sang by Denny and others, in order to show off a full picture of the band in that era. He also played a few songs from his first solo album, "Henry the Human Fly" from 1972, apparently since he linked that with the Fairport years in his mind.
There's a lot of interesting banter between songs. In recent years especially, Thompson has an annoying habit of coughing quite a lot when he's on stage. (I'm guessing this is related to a stuttering problem he's had his whole life.) So I edited out most of the coughs.
