I have arrived home from work early today, and now am sitting down to a nice laptop, a glass of quite nice Crios Torrentes, and some fancy snack mix that is substituting my lunch today, which I skipped to justify leaving early.
Richard Thompson is playing tonight, and boy, am I excited. Although he has remained in my playlist for all these years, I haven’t seen him since I first saw him, and since I first visited New England, in 1991. Back then, it was rare for RT to play anywhere but the coasts of the US, and his trips across the pond were rare, even at that. So, when my music critic boyfriend first saw him in the lineup at the Newport Folk Festival that year, he decided that it was time for a road trip.
We had become fond of these music-seeking road trips, it seemed, having made a trip from the home base of St. Louis right down the roads that ran closest to the Mississippi River. Despite my southern roots, I learned an enormous amount through that experience, went and even found myself contemplating switching graduate programs from my university in St. Louis to the francophone studies program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette–an idea put in my head by none other than Michel Doucet of Beausoleil. But I digress.
Richard Thompson was the reason for our trip to New England, and while the trip itself took us through many states and many experiences, the performance that beautiful day in Rhode Island still comes back to me. So, at last I will see King Richard again.
This year, though, I am older, of course. So is he. And I am also taking my guitar-playing son to see one of the greatest. The new album is great, and has not had enough attention from me. I imagine that will change.
Tonight, also playing–no, speaking, actually–it’s a book tour, is Jeff Tweedy, formerly of Euclid Records and Cicero’s basement and Uncle Tupelo with Enormous Richard opening… now the front man of world famous Wilco, even made a record with Richard Thompson AND SO MANY OTHER GREATS. The tickets for Richard Thompson were actually cheaper, and I had already bought them when I found out about the good-old-times book that Jeff will be peddling. But I wish I could go to both. My brother told me to go to the show, and call Jeff out when he embellishes the stories of those good old days in St. Louis. But alas, I have to be satisfied with seeing the Great One (the other Great One, since we all know that is Gretzky).
More soon….
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