Notes

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An Evening With Richard Thompson
Getty Museum
Los Angeles, CA.
Oct 19, 2001

Supporting Musicians

John Densmore (misc perc)
Judith Owens (vo)



Lineage: MDZ-50 w/ CSB (bass rolloff filter off) ->Sony MDS-J510->Tascam CD-RW700 (CD)->flac


From the Evening's original Concert Program Notes:
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We had great fun last year-possibly at the expence of the audience - with
our show "One Thousand Years Of Popular Music", so I thought something
similar might be appropriate this time. Someone paid me the backhanded
compliment of declaring that the show did not lack for ambition; I have
taken this stinging rebuke somewhat to heart, and this year, in spite of the
snappy title, we will limit ourselves to a mere nine hundred years of
Western musical history.

I feel a kindly service has been performed to the audience in skipping over
the heavy moralizing of Saint Godric (11th century), and we commence our
odyssey with good old "Anon", working our way up to the latter-day
troubadours of the twenty-first century. On our journey, we shall pass
through moods blithe and troubled, bawdy and sacred. As I am unqualified to
sing 90 percent of the music on show, let me stress here that the songs are
intended to be the stars this evening; as fashions change and the baby gets
thrown out with the bath water, we forget how appealing some of the old
stuff can be.

Bear with me this evening if I try to find a few selections that reflect on
recent tragedies- for the good of my own heart I need to express some
thoughts of patriotism, spiritual uplift, and human values. I hope you will
join in as the mood takes you.

Best Wishes,
Richard Thompson
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Here is a review I found on an RT Fan site shortly after the concert. I wish I knew the name of the fellow who wrote it, to properly thank him.

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Here's the set list, which I mostly remembered (geez, how could I forget this show?), with some confirmation of titles from Richard's sound man:

Disc 1
o1 Introduction
o2 "Worlds Blis Ne Last" - a 12th Century song in pre-Chaucerian Old English, with Richard on guitar and John on hand percussion; they walked on stage to the beat of the drum and went right into the song, whose lyrics were barely recognizable as English, if that.
o3 "So Ben Mi Ca Bon Tempo" - a rather catchy song in medieval Italian by 16th Century composer Orazio Vecchi
o4 "Bonnie St. Johnstone" - a genuinely creepy Scottish murder ballad about a woman who gave birth to twins in the forest, murdered them, and was later condemned to hell by the ghosts of her children
o5 "When I Am Laid In Earth" - a song by Henry Purcell, sung by Judith
o6 "A-Beggin' I Will Go" - described by Richard as an "unbelievably old" song which I actually knew from a Scottish version called "Tae the Beggin' I Will Go" done by The Tannahill Weavers
o7 "Blackleg Miner" - a song about strike-breakers from the England's Industrial Age
o8 "Shenandoah" - a terrific rendition of an old American favorite of mine

Disc 2
o1 "I Live in Trafalgar Square" - a ditty from the English music hall days
o2 "Why Have My Loved Ones Gone?" - by Stephen Foster
o3 "There Is Beauty In The Bellow Of The Blast" - from "The Mikado", by Gilbert & Sullivan (!), which Richard and Judith sang together (Wes said, "That's a lot more difficult than it sounds", and it sounded pretty damned difficult to me.)
o4 "Old Rockin' Chair/ - from Hoagy Carmichael
o5 "Orange Coloured Sky" - from Hoagy Carmichael
o6 "Hobo Bill's Last Ride" - from Jimmie Rodgers, "The Singing Brakeman" and one of the fathers of country music
o7 "Cry Me A River" - a big hit for Julie London in 1955, sung by Judith
o8 "The Fool" - from Elvis Presley, but only a snippet thereof
o9 "A Legal Matter" - one of the less well-known songs from The Who, written (of course) by Pete Townshend
o10 "Tempted" - by Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford of Squeeze ("One of my favorite bands of the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years," said Richard)
o11 "Kiss" - by The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known as Prince But Now Once Again Known As Prince, to finish up the main set.
o12 Richard, John and Judith came back for an encore of "You'll Never Walk Alone", from "Carousel" by Rogers and Hammerstein.