I'll try to keep the drool in a cup for this one, yeah I'm one of those.
Please indulge me with 7 minutes of your life. It's worth it.
In the dying days of hardcore, like many of my generation, I fell in love with the Pogues. Which led to a fascination with traditional folk music. And whenever you read about British folk music, one man's name keeps coming up, over and over and over and over again. Richard Thompson.
Let's pass on the songwriting for now, even though he's one of the best of the last century. And let's take a brief glimpse at the acoustic work he's renowned for:
Ya'll can search that out on your own. I blame most of my issues with CTS on trying to play like that...
No, instead let's talk about RT the electric artist, which is often, maddeningly, overlooked.
Please indulge me with 7 minutes of your life. It's worth it.
In the dying days of hardcore, like many of my generation, I fell in love with the Pogues. Which led to a fascination with traditional folk music. And whenever you read about British folk music, one man's name keeps coming up, over and over and over and over again. Richard Thompson.
Let's pass on the songwriting for now, even though he's one of the best of the last century. And let's take a brief glimpse at the acoustic work he's renowned for:
No, instead let's talk about RT the electric artist, which is often, maddeningly, overlooked.
First, there's that blend: 60s rock, celtic, country, and experimental music. Then there's that right hand: I've always maintained that the picking hand is the critical part of playing. Listen to the right hand accent and dynamics at play. Combined with those sneaky hammer ons and double stops slides.
RT's playing is both sinewy and muscular at the same time. He can be delicate and brutal in the same phrase. He's just damn good, and has been for a long long time. Here he is at 19:
It's actually proving to be really hard for my meagre brain to come up with anything to say. When you're dealing with monster talents (Reinhardt, Hall, McLaughlin, Harkleroad, Thompson), frankly language let's us down. And that's why I love RT's playing so much: it can't be described.
And in his mid-60s, he still burns:
Did I mention what a great songwriter he is too? One more before we go:
No comments:
Post a Comment