Beeswing

Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975 , by Richard Thompson

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

British folk-rock guitar virtuoso recalls his early years in a new memoir.

BY DAVID LUHRSSEN

I sold guitar strings to Richard Thompson. The 6-string virtuoso busted some during sound check and my concert promoter friend rushed him to the music store where I worked. Thompson was unassuming, friendly, happy to be helped out of a last-minute jam. The show was only an hour or two away.

The person I met that night is evident throughout his memoir, Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975. Thompson was at the younger end of the generation of British musicians who found their way in the postwar rubble of the empire, inspired in large part by the intriguing sounds emanating from the states. But only in part. In the tentative advent of his first band, Fairport Convention, Thompson played songs by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, but was also aware of the British folk tradition at this doorstep. Continue reading →

Richard Thompson Announces First-Ever Memoir, ‘Beeswing,’ Out 2021

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Richard Thompson "Beeswing"

Richard Thompson’s memoir, ‘Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975.,’ is out in 2021.

Richard Thompson has been one of rock’s MVPs since the mid-Sixties. He was a founding member of Fairport Convention — the band that invented the merger of rock and British folk — and his subsequent, musically timeless albums with his ex-wife Linda have long been revered: Their 1982 Shoot Out the Lights made Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. He’s also earned the respect of many of his fellow musicians; his songs have been covered by Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant, Bonnie Raitt, Dinosaur Jr., Bob Mould, and the Pointer Sisters, among many.

Thompson has lived quite the life, and fans can read all about it next spring with the publication of Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975. Tracing his life from his childhood, through his Fairport days, and into his music and life with the former Linda Peters, Beeswing is, in the words of publisher Algonquin, “an intimate look at a period of great cultural tumult, chronicling the early years of one of the world’s most significant and influential guitarists and songwriters.” The memoir will be published April 6th in the U.S. (by Algonquin) and April 15th in the U.K. (by Faber Books).

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