Richard & Linda Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1981-1982

Here's the fourth and final album in my album series of Richard and Linda Thompson performing for the BBC. If you liked any of the first three, this is more of the same good stuff.

The only album this duo released in 1981 or 1982 is the great album "Shoot Out the Lights" in 1982. So you might expect to see a lot of songs from that. In fact, only three songs come from it ("Just the Motion," "Shoot Out the Lights," and "A Man in Need"). Instead, the songs are from all points in their musical careers, even including a song from when Richard Thompson was in Fairport Convention ("Sloth").

Technically, only one of the songs is officially unreleased, but that depends on what you think of a DVD release. Eight of the 12 songs come from an officially released DVD, but I had to convert them to mp3 format. The vast majority of the songs were broadcast on the BBC, though the last one was broadcast on a US radio station. All of the songs have excellent sound. As with the rest of this series, I stripped the audience applause at the end. And, like the rest of the series, I doubt you'd even notice these came from a concert with an audience if I didn't mention it, because the audience stayed so quiet during the songs and the sound is so good.

01 Just the Motion (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 Night Comes In (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 I'm a Dreamer (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 Shoot Out the Lights (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 You're Going to Need Somebody (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Dargai [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 Dimming of the Day (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 Time to Ring Some Changes (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 A Man in Need (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 Withered and Died (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 Sloth (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V3mdpqAy

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2rTHIZaNbKrmMcY/file

For the album cover, I took a couple of screenshots from the DVD mentioned above. One was of Richard and the other was of Linda. In Photoshop, I adjusted things so they would be close to each other (instead of widely separated on stage as they actually were).  The odd coloring is due to colored stage lights. Note that I later improved the photo with the Krea AI program.

Richard & Linda Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1978-1981

Here's the third out of four albums of Richard and Linda Thompson at the BBC.

For the previous two volumes, virtually all of the performances were officially released. But for this one, all but one of the performances are still unreleased. The 2020 box set "Hard Luck Stories" has a big gap in the BBC and/or live material from this time period. Luckily though, there were a couple of concerts, one from 1978 and the other from 1980, that were recorded live for the BBC. The vast majority of the songs here come from those two concerts.

Despite the fact that this is mostly unreleased, the sound quality is still excellent. The BBC always did a bang up job with the quality of their recorded concerts. As I often do, I've eliminated the crowd response after each song. For all the live songs here, the audience was quiet and respectful during songs, so it would be easy to believe these are studio versions with no audience at all

01 House of Cards (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 Genesis Hall (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 Restless Highway (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 Things You Gave Me (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Sweet Surrender (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 The Wrong Heartbeat (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 Speechless Child (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 Wall of Death (Richard & Linda Thompson)
13 Backstreet Slide (Richard & Linda Thompson)
14 Modern Woman (Richard & Linda Thompson)
15 Borrowed Time (Richard & Linda Thompson)
16 Pavanne (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/U21VWcfz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3V3ACvrdGR4LcPy/file

The cover art photo is a screenshot I took from the DVD that goes with the "Hard Luck Stories" box set. I forget, but I believe it's from a 1980 or 1981 concert. I thought it would be interesting for once to have a wide view that includes some of the audience in a small club. I believe that's Simon Nicol in the shadows, assisting on guitar. I later improved the photo with the Krea AI program.

Richard & Linda Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1975-1977

Here's the second of four albums of Richard and Linda Thompson performing for the BBC.

What sticks out for me on this album is the small number of songs. The previous volume in this series is about the same length as this one, 45 minutes, but that one has 13 songs on it and this one has six. The reason is because the last three songs are long guitar work outs. So if you enjoy Richard Thompson's guitar soloing, you'll love this album.

All of the performances here have been officially released, so the sound quality is fantastic. All but the first one are concert recordings. But as I often do, I removed the crowd noise. The recording is so pristine that it was easy to make that removal, and the songs sound like they were recorded in an empty room.

As I mentioned in my comments for the first album in this series, the only repeated song is "A Heart Needs a Home." I would have included more banter, but there is only one brief comment before one of the songs.

01 A Heart Needs a Home (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 It'll Be Me (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 Things You Gave Me (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 The Calvary Cross (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 Night Comes In (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Layla (Richard & Linda Thompson) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/STzDJbH6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/XY3U5abWSHhUsNP/file

I'm not exactly sure where or when the cover art image comes from. It's a screenshot I took from the DVD that comes with the Richard (and sometimes Linda) Thompson album "Live at the BBC." I think it's from 1981, since most of the footage is from that year. I later improved the photo with the Krea AI program.

Richard & Linda Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1973-1975

I've been posting a bunch of Richard and Linda Thompson albums. Here's the start of a four album series, featuring the duo performing for the BBC. 

In 2011, a Richard Thompson album named "Live at the BBC" was released. It's made up of three discs, and the first one contained all Richard and Linda Thompson performances. So one might think that's all there is. But it turns out this was just the tip of the iceberg. In late 2020, a box set of the duo called "Hard Luck Stories" was released. It contained many more BBC performances. However, in a surprise twist, most of them are not labeled as such. It turns out nearly all of the live material on that box set come from concerts or sessions recorded for and played on the BBC. 

For this series, I've gathered up all that material, and added some more. But there are a couple of exceptions. For one, if there's a rare song where the only good version is from a BBC performance, I've put that on one of the stray tracks albums I've made, and I don't want to repeat that exact performance in this series. And two, I've tried not to repeat the same song twice in the series. Luckily, there are very few instances of such duplicates. 

Mostly, I had a problem with the song "A Heart Needs a Home." I bent a little bit and have included a version of that on this album and another one on the next one in the series. This one is fully acoustic while the next one has a light band backing. But I balked at including a third version (from the "Watching the Dark" box set) that's from the same year, since it's not much different from either of the versions I did include. 

Everything on this volume has been officially released, so it all sounds great. The last four songs come from a concert in front of an audience. As I often do, I edited out the audience applause so these songs will fit in with the rest. I could do that because the recording of those is good enough to sound like a studio performance.

This album is 46 minutes long. The other albums in this series have comparable lengths.

01 The Little Beggar Girl (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 The Great Valerio (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 Hokey Pokey [The Ice Cream Song] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 Georgie on a Spree (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 I'll Regret It All in the Morning (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 A Heart Needs a Home (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 A Heart Needs a Home (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 The Dark End of The Street (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 Beat the Retreat (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
13 The Sun Never Shines on the Poor (Richard & Linda Thompson)
14 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
15 Never Again (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15849830/RichnLinT_1973-1975_BBSessionsVolum1_atse.zip.html

I've complained about this before, and I'm likely to complain again: it's really hard to find good color photos of Richard and Linda Thompson! I've used up pretty much all the good ones I could find, at least for this time period, so I've had to colorize this one. It comes from a concert at the Imperial College in London in March 1973.

Richard & Linda Thompson - Acoustic Radio Sessions, 1980-1981

Some years ago, someone named "propylaen" posted a Richard and Linda Thompson bootleg called "The Complete Radio Sessions, 1980-1981." It's a great collection of a bunch of acoustic performances they did on various radio shows. This is a slimmed down version of that. 

I've removed a couple of songs that don't appear in good quality elsewhere to put on my stray tracks albums for this era. I also removed any songs played here more than once. Luckily, there were only a couple of those as well.

The songs sound great, since they were recorded for radio broadcast. (One or two sound a little worse than the others. I think "Break My Mind" is one of those, if I recall correctly.) In all cases, they were recorded in front of a very small audience, maybe a couple dozen people, or without any audience at all. To keep things consistent, I removed all the audience noise. Luckily, the various audiences were always respectful of the music, letting the songs' final notes fade out before clapping and not making any sounds during the songs. So, listening to this, it would be very easy to believe there never was an audience at all. But at the same time I was able to keep the banter between songs, and there's a lot of interesting talk.

The songs are presented in chronological order. The last four songs feature Richard Thompson without Linda. He started to do some solo shows in 1981, and this is one of them. They would stay together as a musical duo through a 1982 tour.

I plan on posting a bunch of albums of the duo playing at the BBC. Some of this, maybe half, are from BBC radio shows. But I thought this holds together well as an all acoustic thing, whereas most of the other BBC performances I plan on posting are with a full band. I don't know why there's a bunch of acoustic shows from 1980 and 1981, and few from 1982 or the years before. Perhaps it's just that that person propylaen managed to save them from being lost, because I've looked over a list of all of their performances and there are many radio show appearances that seem to have been lost (meaning they're not available on official records or bootlegs).

This album is an hour and ten minutes long.

01 Pavanne (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 Strange Affair (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 Sunnyvista (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 Crying in the Rain (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Break My Mind (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 Lonely Hearts (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 Lucky in Life, Unlucky in Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 Walking on a Wire (Richard & Linda Thompson)
13 Dimming of the Day (Richard & Linda Thompson)
14 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
15 Modern Woman (Richard & Linda Thompson)
16 Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair (Richard & Linda Thompson)
17 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
18 I'm Turning Off a Memory (Richard & Linda Thompson)
19 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
20 Backstreet Slide (Richard & Linda Thompson)
21 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
22 Just the Motion (Richard & Linda Thompson)
23 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
24 talk (Richard Thompson)
25 Banish Misfortune [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)
26 talk (Richard Thompson)
27 Honky Tonk Blues (Richard Thompson)
28 talk (Richard Thompson)
29 The Choice Wife [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)
30 talk (Richard Thompson)
31 Borrowed Time (Richard Thompson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15852173/RichnLinT_1980-1981_AcoustcRdioSssions_atse.zip.html

It's so damn hard to find good color photos of this duo. To make this album cover, I had to get creative. I found a high quality video recording of them (I forget which one). I took a screenshot of Linda, then another screenshot of Richard. Then I edited them in Photoshop to make it appear that they both were in the same shot at the same time.

Richard & Linda Thompson - Acoustic Demos (1972-1980)

I spent the past few days updating my Richard and Linda Thompson music collection, after processing the new material on the recently released "Hard Luck Stories" box set. I want to post the new albums I've made from that over the next few days, while while I did is still fresh in my mind.

This is exactly what it says in the title, a collection of acoustic demos. Note that it does NOT contain all of the available acoustic demos. In a few cases, there are demos of songs that don't exist in any other version. I've put all those in the relevant stray track albums. This contains just the demos of songs available elsewhere. Most of them are of songs from studio albums, I believe "Sometimes It Happens" is the only exception. Also, "When Will I Be Loved" is a demo of a cover song by the Bunch, a short-lived group with Richard and Linda Thompson in it. This version is a duet between Linda and famous folk singer Sandy Denny, who also was part of the Bunch.

I must admit I sneaked in a couple of songs here that aren't actually demos. That's because they sound exactly like them, and I didn't have a better place to put them. Two are live acoustic performances with the audience applause edited out, and the other is considered an "alternate version." I didn't include any full band versions, but "Traces of My Love" does have some light drumming on it.

This album is one hour long.

01 Sometimes It Happens (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 When Will I Be Loved (Bunch)
03 A Heart Needs a Home (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 Down Where the Drunkards Roll (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 Never Again [Alternate Version] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 Hokey Pokey [The Ice Cream Song] [Live] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 The Great Valerio [Live] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 First Light (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 Died for Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 Layla (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 Strange Affair (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 Traces of My Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)
13 Just the Motion (Richard & Linda Thompson)
14 Walking on a Wire (Richard & Linda Thompson)
15 Wall of Death (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9fLuwsbA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/k1ZtanYaKqlpTm8/file

Damn, there are so few good photos I can find of Richard and Linda together. This one is from October 1978. It was in black and white, but I colorized it. I later sharpened the image with the Krea AI program.

Linda Thompson - I'll Show You How to Sing - Non-Album Tracks (1968-1972 )

In late 2020, the Richard and Linda Thompson box set "Hard Luck Stories" was released. It contains previously unreleased goodies from all parts of the duet's time together. Because of that, I'm upgrading all the albums from them with minor changes.

It so happens there was a bunch of extra material from the beginning of their musical partnership, which started around 1971 and 1972. I already have an album dealing with this time period, called "Shady Lies." You can find it here:

Richard & Linda Thompson - Shady Lies - Various Songs (1970-1972)

I've drastically changed that album, due to the new material, so I highly recommend you redownload that, if you're interested enough to be reading this. I realized there is a bunch of songs featuring Linda Thompson by herself or with others before she musically linked up with her soon-to-be husband Richard Thompson. So I've spun off all the early Linda Thompson material here. What's left on "Shade Lies" is more stuff with Linda and Richard together.

Linda Thompson was born Linda Pettifer, and changed that to the simpler Linda Peters for her stage name. You can read more about her and her career at her Wikipedia page, here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Thompson_(singer) 

Suffice to say that she put out a single with Paul McNeill in 1968, then another one with him in 1969. I've found three out of those four songs and included them here. I couldn't find "When I Hear Your Name," which is the B-side to the 1969 single. If you have it, let me know and I'll add it to this album.

After that, she did a number of songs that weren't released at the time, but came out on archival releases much later. A couple of those, the ones with Brian Patten, are from the "Hard Luck Stories" box set. Generally speaking, Linda does all the lead vocals, although Paul McNeill does share lead on a couple of their songs together. The songs she did with Elton John are related to the jobs he was doing to earn some extra money before he became famous. I have a whole album of those where he sings lead, which can be found here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/09/elton-john-hits-70-various-songs-1970.html

Anyway, Linda was in demand for these various projects because it was obvious that she had an excellent voice. However, she hadn't tried songwriting yet (she would much later in her career), so these are all covers. Note that I've edited "Get Back," which is the Beatles hit, because in her version she repeated one of the verses, and it seemed entirely unnecessary to me, so I cut that out.

Note that during most of the time period covered by this album, Linda Thompson was known as Linda Peters. But I've only called her "Linda Thompson" for consistency's sake with all of her later material. 

Oh, by the way, on the same day I posted this album, I updated ALL the Richard and Linda Thompson stray tracks albums. Typically, I've added a song or two to each one, mostly thanks to the "Hard Luck Stories" box set.

01 I'll Show You How to Sing (Paul McNeill & Linda Thompson)
02 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Paul McNeill & Linda Thompson)
03 You're Taking My Bag (Paul McNeill & Linda Thompson)
04 Story of Isaac (Linda Thompson)
05 Down River (Linda Thompson)
06 Fire and Rain (Linda Thompson)
07 From a City Balcony (Linda Thompson)
08 Get Back [Edit] (Linda Thompson)
09 I Don't Mind (Linda Thompson with Elton John)
10 This Moment (Linda Thompson with Elton John)
11 Pied Piper (Linda Thompson with Elton John)
12 You Get Brighter (Linda Thompson with Elton John)
13 Embroidered Butterflies (Brian Patten with Linda Thompson)
14 After Frost (Brian Patten with Linda Thompson)
15 Sometimes It Happens (Linda Thompson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687536/LindThmp_1968-1972_IllShwYouHwSing_atse.zip.html

I'm really happy about the cover art photo I found here, because good photos of Richard and/or Linda Thompson from the early years of their time as a duo are very hard to find. I don't know when this photo is from, but I found it paired with one of Richard, and judging by their looks I'd guess it's from around 1973. It was in black and white, but I colorized it.

Richard & Linda Thompson - The Bottom Line, New York City, 5-18-1982, Late Show

A couple of days ago, I posted the early show of Richard and Linda Thompson playing the Bottom Line in New York City on May 18, 1982. This is the late show from the same night. If you liked the early show, you'll like this one too. And you should get both, if only because the song list is fairly different.

Most of what I want to say here has been said in my comments for the early show. But I'll sum up by saying that the concert highlight of Richard and Linda Thompson's career together has to be their final 1982 tour, and the Bottom Line shows have to be the highlight of that tour. If nothing else, the Bottom Line shows stand out due to the sound quality - these are pristine soundboards.

As with the early show, I did some audio tweaking here and there. Mostly, I boosted the volume of the talking between songs, and I also deleted some aimless guitar tuning and the like. Also, like the early show, the audience reaction after each song was abnormally quiet, since the soundboard didn't record much audience noise. So I tried to boost the volume of that for each song.

The song "Sloth" presented a more difficult problem. There was a gap with some missing music in it halfway through the song. I'm not sure how much was missing, but I'm guessing about 10 or 20 seconds. I couldn't patch this with a section from a different part of the song, or even from a different version, because the band was in the middle of an instrumental soloing section that was unique. So I just closed the gap and overlapped the two sections a little bit. Hopefully, you won't notice.

I've added three bonus tracks of sorts to the end of the concert. Between the early and late show, just about every song they played on the 1982 tour is included, but not every one. There are a few that aren't recorded or only recorded in poor to middling quality. I didn't include any of those. But I found three that were recorded with the same sort of high quality as the rest of this concert, so I did include those. I'm especially happy that I was able to include "Wall of Death," both because it's one of Richard Thompson's very best songs, in my opinion, and also because it was the only song from the 1982 album "Shoot Out the Lights" that wasn't already included in the early or late show.

01 Dargai [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 Man in Need (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 I'm a Dreamer (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 Hard Luck Stories (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Pavanne (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 Lonely Hearts (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 You're Going to Need Somebody (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 Genesis Hall (Richard & Linda Thompson)
13 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
14 Sloth [Edit] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
15 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
16 Don't Renege on Our Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)
17 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
18 Just the Motion (Richard & Linda Thompson)
19 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
20 Borrowed Time (Richard & Linda Thompson)
21 High School Confidential [Edit] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
22 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
23 Night Comes In (Richard & Linda Thompson)
24 I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Richard & Linda Thompson)
25 Wall of Death (Richard & Linda Thompson) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3kjf23YH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/1RqPwTgbOnwGIS7/file

As I mentioned in my comments for the early show, normally I'm loathe to use black and white photos for the cover art, but in this case I found two (and only two) photos actually from the Bottom Line on the correct date, so I couldn't resist using them. I don't know if they're from the early or late shows. Some months after first posting this album, I colorized this one. Also, like the picture for the early show, I moved Linda and Richard closer together.

Richard & Linda Thompson - The Bottom Line, New York City, 5-18-1982, Early Show

I've been looking for an excellent Richard and Linda Thompson concert recording from 1982 for a long time, but I wasn't aware of worthy one. Until a few days ago, that is. Their 1982 tour is the most interesting one for me, because it was the last time they performed concerts together, which meant they could draw on songs from all their albums. Most importantly, it happened right after the release of "Shoot Out the Lights," which I consider one of the top 100 albums of all time, so of course the songs from that album were prominently featured.

The 1982 tour was full of personal drama, to say the least. In 1981, Linda was Richard's wife and was very pregnant with his child when they recorded the "Shoot Out the Lights" album. The release of the album was delayed a few months until she'd recovered from giving birth and was physically ready to tour. In the meanwhile, Richard performed a short tour in the US to help draw interest for a planned bigger tour with Linda. He fell in love with the woman who helped set up the tour, Nancy Covey, and broke his marriage vows. He would marry Nancy a couple of years later. But in the meantime, a May 1982 Richard and Linda Thompson tour of the US went ahead, despite the fact their marriage was dramatically falling apart. The tour has since been dubbed "The Tour from Hell," due to the extreme personal tensions off stage. But on stage, they generally carried on in a musically successful manner.

Some of the shows were professionally recorded with a plan to release a live album of it. But some technical problems with a few of the recorded shows meant the album never happened, even though some other shows were recorded just fine. Over the years, some live recordings have come out here and there. Most notably, a 2010 re-release of "Shoot Out the Lights" had a second disc of live performances from the tour. But the songs were selected from a number of different shows. No single concert from the tour has been released in full, or anything close to full.

On May 18, 1982, the Thompsons played an early and late show at the Bottom Line in New York City. Soundboard recordings of these shows have come out as bootlegs. It's highly likely these are among the professionally recorded shows meant for the planned live album. As a result, the sound quality is excellent.

However, there were a few issues with the recording. One problem with great soundboards is that they often record what's happening on stage very well but then record almost nothing of the audience. So when each song ends, it seems as if the band is playing to a tiny and/or uninterested crowd. That was the case here. So I carefully boosted the volume of the crowd reaction after every song.

Furthermore, for whatever reason, the volume of the between song banter and a few acoustic songs was way, way below the volume of the electric songs. Note the two ways in "way, way below," because there was an extremely unusual difference there, even compared to most soundboard recordings of this nature. But I was able to fix that by drastically increasing the volume of the quiet parts. That did result in some hiss sometimes. For the talking between songs, I employed some noise reduction to make that less obvious. But I didn't do that with the songs themselves.

There are a couple of other soundboard bootlegs from the 1982 "Tour from Hell." But in my opinion, the Bottom Line shows are the definitive ones, at least in terms of what has become public. A big reason for that is because both the early and late shows were recorded well, and between the two shows, just about every song the band knew how to play on the tour got played. I'm posting the early show here, but I'll post the late show soon as well.

By the way, I have "Edit" in the name of "Just the Motion" because there was about half a minute missing from the middle of the song. The song was also played in the late show, so I used the missing portion from that to patch it up. Luckily, the missing section wasn't in the middle of a solo, so it sounds fine now.

01 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 Back Street Slide (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 Walking on a Wire (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 Newfangled Floggin Reel - Kerry Reel [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 Honky Tonk Blues (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 I'll Keep It with Mine (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 You're Going to Need Somebody (Richard & Linda Thompson)
13 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
14 Dimming of the Day (Richard & Linda Thompson)
15 Withered and Died (Richard & Linda Thompson)
16 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
17 Man in Need (Richard & Linda Thompson)
18 Just the Motion [Edit] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
19 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
20 Don't Renege on Our Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)
21 Did She Jump or Was She Pushed (Richard & Linda Thompson)
22 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
23 Shoot Out The Lights (Richard & Linda Thompson)
24 For the Shame of Doing Wrong (Richard & Linda Thompson)
25 talk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
26 Down Where the Drunkards Roll (Richard & Linda Thompson)
27 Danny Boy (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QaKQj1AG

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/g4RqJwi4bzceh83/file

If you've closely followed this blog, you may have noticed that I have a strong dislike of using black and white photos for the album cover art. While that's true in general, I make exceptions sometimes, such as this one. It's surprisingly hard to find any good photos of Richard and Linda Thompson at all. But it so happens I've found two photos of them from the very Bottom Line shows on May 18, 1982. The only downside is they're in black and white. Some months after first posting this album, I colorized this photo.

Also, in the original photo, Richard and Linda were standing about four or five feet apart. I used Photoshop to move them closer together, to make a better picture.

Richard & Linda Thompson - The Price of Love - Non-Album Tracks (1982)

1982 was a seminal year for Richard and Linda Thompson, because they released their all time classic album "Shoot Out the Lights" and had a final tour of the US even though their marriage was dramatically falling apart. Richard Thompson started his solo career right away, having solo concerts only a month after the last Richard and Linda Thompson concert. For the purpose of this album, I'm only including material from the time the two of them were still together musically, which lasted through June 1982.

Six of the eleven songs here (plus the bonus track) come from that tour, with the audience noise removed if possible, as I usually do. Unfortunately, the tour was not recorded well. Even officially released songs from soundboard performances sometimes only have good sound quality instead of excellent. We have to make do.

One song ("Great Balls of Fire") was a notch below the rest in terms of the sound, so I've only included it as a bonus track.

A few of the other songs feature Richard Thompson only. But they date from before the final break up of the Richard and Linda duo, so I consider those fair game. Luckily, they come from in-person radio show appearances, so the sound quality on those is excellent.

This album is 40 minutes long, not counting the bonus track.

01 Living in Luxury (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 Move It On Over (Richard Thompson)
03 New-Fangled Flogging Reel - Kerry Reel [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 Danny Boy (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 High School Confidential (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 Genesis Hall (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Honky Tonk Blues (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 Learning the Game (Richard Thompson)
09 I'll Keep It with Mine (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 Sheebeg and Sheemore [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson with Simon Nicol)
11 The Price of Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)

Great Balls of Fire (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15852266/RichnLinT_1982b_ThePrceLve_atse.zip.html

I originally made the cover art using a screenshot of a YouTube video from 1982.But the quality was poor. Eventually, I was able to find a really nice color photo of the duo from a 1982 photo shoot for an album cover. The only problem was that it was taken from an album booklet and there was a distortion across the middle of the photo since it was spread across two pages. I used Photoshop to hopefully fix that issue, but some slight changes resulted from that.

Richard & Linda Thompson - Time to Ring Some Changes - Non-Album Tracks (1981)

Here's another Richard and Linda Thompson stray tracks album. Although I must say this doesn't have a lot of Linda on it.

In 1982, Richard Thompson got romantically involved with another woman despite being married to Linda at the time. She found out and they divorced as a result, after one final and emotionally contentious tour. But it retrospect, their marriage had been on the rocks for a while, and Richard had been starting in on his solo career before 1982.

In 1981, not only did he release his first solo album (an all instrumental one called "Strict Tempo!"), but he started doing some other solo recordings and even performing some solo shows. On top of all that, he joined a group (that only lasted through 1981) called the GPs that was led by him and Ralph McTell, with the two of them evenly splitting the singing.

Five of the ten songs here are from Richard's various solo ventures that year. Three of those songs are from the GPs (who only released one obscure album about a decade after they broke up). "The Knife-Edge" comes from his solo album "Strict Tempo." Frankly, that all-instrumental album is for limited tastes. But the song I chose is the only Richard Thompson original from it, and I think it's the highlight.

I made a significant edit on the other Richard solo song, "Time Has Told Me." This is a nice cover of a Nick Drake song with some tasty Hawaiian slack key guitar work added by Raymond Kane. But on the released version, Kane sings the last verse, and I didn't like that. It seemed odd to me that his unusual voice would come in so late in the song. It just didn't work musically, in my opinion. Since that last verse was a repeat of the first verse, I swapped out Kane's singing with Richard's.

By the way, for albums like these, I try to stick to songs that aren't on official studio albums. I've made kind of an exception here with the song "Sloth." That song (which Richard co-wrote) is well known from it's original version when Richard was a part of Fairport Convention. It's a classic that's been done lots of times since. But I figure this version is special because it's possibly the only version with high sound quality in which Linda Thompson has a prominent role in the vocals.

Speaking of sound quality, I included one song as a bonus track only because the sound quality wasn't quite up to snuff with the rest of the album.

01 Time to Ring Some Changes (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Richard Thompson & the GPs)
03 Tryin' to Get to You (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 Planxty Morgan Mawgan - Long Odds [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 [Come Round Here] I'm the One You Need (Richard Thompson & the GPs)
06 Sloth (Richard & Linda Thompson with Simon Nicol)
07 Going, Going, Gone (Richard Thompson & the GPs)
08 Blues in a Bottle (Richard & Linda Thompson with Simon Nicol)
09 The Knife-Edge [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)
10 Time Has Told Me [Edit] (Richard Thompson with Raymond Kane)
11. Banish Misfortune [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)

Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Richard Thompson & the GPs)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/E4EKsQyd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/8srzCzEbRIT00GQ/file

I made the album cover from a screenshot of a YouTube video of a 1981 concert performance. I later used the Krea AI program to sharpen the image.

Richard & Linda Thompson - The Wrong Heartbeat - Non-Album Tracks (1978-1980)

I've been really getting into Richard Thompson's music lately. I'd already been a big fan, but I recently found a bunch of bootleg material I hadn't known about, and I've been incorporating it into my collection. I've got so much of his stuff to post that I'm going to post three of his albums at once, finishing off the stray tracks for the phase of his career with his then wife Linda Thompson.

This album deals with the years 1978 to 1980, but most of it is from 1980. A majority of the songs are originals, and the rest are pretty obscure covers. Well, a couple of them aren't obscure. Surprisingly, Richard does the surf rock instrumental "Pipeline" and a song best known from its association with the Harlem Globetrotters, "Sweet Georgia Brown." Oh, and "Crying in the Rain" was a hit for the Everly Brothers.

The song quality ranges from excellent to pretty good. There are three songs though that I wanted to include but felt I couldn't, due to sound quality issues. So I've added those as bonus tracks.

UPDATE: On February 1, 2021, I updated the mp3 download file. I added the songs "Then He Kissed Me," "The Dust of Your Road," and "Drunk."

01 Woman or a Man (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 The Gas Almost Works [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 La Valse de Madame Sosten (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 The Dust of Your Road (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 Drunk (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 Then He Kissed Me (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Speechless Child (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 I'm a Dreamer (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 The Wrong Heartbeat (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 Modern Woman (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 Pipeline [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 How Many Times Do You Have to Fall (Richard & Linda Thompson)
13 Lucky in Life, Unlucky in Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)
14 Sweet Georgia Brown [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson with Richard Digence)
15 Crying in the Rain (Richard & Linda Thompson)

No Particular Place to Go (Richard & Linda Thompson)
Sugar Babe (Richard & Linda Thompson)
The Train That Carried My Girl from Town (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kVFPJSLJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2dBZauM793yoiPl/file

I could find very, very few photos of Richard and Linda Thompson. I found this one in black and white and added a sepia tone. Months later, I colorized. I'm not completely sure, but I believe it's from 1978. Still later, I used the Krea AI program to improve the image.

Richard & Linda Thompson - The Madness of Love - Non-Album Tracks (1977)

Here's the next in my series of Richard Thompson stray tracks albums, with this still in the middle of the Richard and Linda Thompson years.

In 1974, Richard Thompson converted to Islam, and he remains Muslim to this day. His wife Linda Thompson converted as well, but apparently more reluctantly. They released two albums in 1975, but then they moved to a Sufi community in the English countryside, much like a religious commune, and dropped out of the music business for a while.

In 1977, Richard wrote some new songs and went on a short tour with Linda. He also made an attempt to record a new album in the studio. However, something felt off to him about the new songs, or maybe getting back into music in general, because the new album never materialized. He put out another Richard and Linda Thompson album in 1978, "First Light," but it didn't contain any of the 1977 songs.

Luckily though, one concert (at Drury Lane, London) from that short 1977 tour was recorded fairly well. The first five songs here come from that Drury Lane concert. Many years later, Richard was asked about these songs, and he said, "Some songs deserve to fall off the radar." He's avoided putting them on retrospective compilations or adding them as bonus tracks or the like, so he really must have an issue with them. But it's very puzzling, because they're all good songs. Graham Parker even covered one of them ("Madness of Love") for a Richard Thompson tribute album.

If you take the five unreleased songs from that 1977 concert and add in two other obscure songs released in 1978, it makes up a lost 1977 album. In my opinion it's just as good as their other albums, though the song quality is a bit lower than ideal on the live songs.

In late 2020, the box set "Hard Luck Stories" was released. Happily, it contained better versions of four of the songs. Unfortunately, that means it didn't contain two of them, "Rescue Me" and "The Fire in the Garden." Those two sound a bit worse than the others. 

The bonus track "The Flute Tells a Story" seems to be another original from this time period. But while it was played at that same Drury Lane concert, it didn't make it to the bootleg. Instead, I found a version from a different concert bootleg. The sound quality is okay, but of lesser quality than all the others on this album, which is why it's only a bonus track.

01 The Madness of Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 Rescue Me (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 The Fire in the Garden (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 A Bird in God's Garden (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 The King of Love (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 If I Were a Woman and You Were a Man (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Rainbow Over the Hill (Linda Thompson & the Albion Band)
08 Things You Gave Me (Richard & Linda Thompson)

The Flute Tells a Story (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RaZ4q7R1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WImYAFv3tXi2oFe/file

When I first posted this, I had a different cover. But I wasn't happy with it, due to the lack of good color photos of Richard and Linda Thompson, especially in their first years. Many months later, I found a better picture, from December 1974. It was in black and white, but by then I had a program to help with colorizing, so I colorized it. Later, I improved it with the Krea AI program.

Richard & Linda Thompson - Together Again - Non-Album Tracks (1975-1976)

Here's the next in a long series of Richard Thompson albums. I'm still chronologically working through the Richard and Linda Thompson years before getting to his solo years.

The album is a grab bag of different things. A good chunk of it is cover songs from concerts (with the audience noise removed, as usual). But probably the highlight is a live version of "The Calvary Cross." It was on the 1974 album "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight," but that was a four minute version, and this is a 13 minute version with some epic guitar soloing. So I figured that was different enough to warrant its inclusion here, even though I don't like to repeat songs released on official studio albums.

There also are some songs from "(guitar, vocal),"  a curious Richard Thompson odds and sods compilation that was released in 1976. There are two instrumentals done specifically for that album. In addition, there's the curious case of "Poor Willy and the Jolly Hangman." That was an unreleased Fairport Convention outtake from 1970, when Richard was still in that band. But in 1975, Linda added her vocals to that version, making it both a Richard and Linda Thompson and Fairport Convention recording at the same time. (By the way, one of the "covers" elsewhere on this album, "Now Be Thankful," is actually another Fairport Convention song, but done differently in the Richard and Linda Thompson version here.)

I've added one song only as a bonus track: "A Heart Needs a Home." That's because it's a popular  Richard and Linda Thompson song, first done on the 1975 "Hokey Pokey" album. But this is an alternate version with notably different instrumentation that first came out on the "(guitar, vocals)" album, so I'm including it for completists.

01 I'm Turning Off a Memory (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 Wishing (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 The Dark End of the Street (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 Last Chance (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 Wanted Man (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 Together Again (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Why Don't You Love Me (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 Now Be Thankful (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 It'll Be Me (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 Flee as a Bird [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)
11 Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman (Richard & Linda Thompson & Fairport Convention)
12 The Pitfall - The Excursion [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15851967/RichnLinT_1975-1976_TogethrAgin_atse.zip.html

I made the cover, which comes from a 1975 concert video.

Richard & Linda Thompson - Break My Mind - Non-Album Tracks (1972-1973)

I've posted one Richard and Linda Thompson stray tracks album already, covering their earliest years. This is the second, covering the rest of 1972 and all of 1973.

The last album only had one song actually credited to Richard and Linda Thompson, although they sang together on some of the other tracks. This is really where their collaboration begins. In 1972, Richard Thompson released his first solo album, "Henry the Human Fly," and the two of them got married.

By the end of the year, they started touring as a duo. The first six songs here come from the one and only 1972 acoustic concert they did that got bootlegged. The sound quality is a bit below my usual standards, but I think it's still acceptable.

Then there are four officially released tracks dating from 1973, one from a box set, one from a compilation album and two from archival BBC performances. They recorded all of their classic "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" album in 1973, but for some reason their record company sat on it for a full year before releasing it.

I haven't included any songs here from that album, even though they were starting to play some of them in concert. Instead, I've concentrated either on songs that never got any official release from them, or songs from Richard's "Henry the Human Fly" album. The latter is because that was done solo (although Linda did help out on some songs) and the duo versions are often quite different. Also, that album was done with a full band, and these versions are all acoustic. Many of the other songs here that weren't on that solo album are cover versions, such as "She May Call You Up Tonight" (originally by the Left Banke) and "The Wild Side of Life."

The last six songs here come from what apparently is the only bootlegged 1973 concert from them. The sound quality is better, but still not great.

As I often do, I've removed the audience noise whenever I could.

01 She May Call You Up Tonight (Richard & Linda Thompson)
02 Brand New Way to Hurt a Woman (Richard & Linda Thompson)
03 Painted Ladies (Richard & Linda Thompson)
04 Twisted (Richard & Linda Thompson)
05 Break My Mind (Richard & Linda Thompson)
06 The Poor Ditching Boy (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Mother and Son (Richard & Linda Thompson)
08 Dragging the River (Richard & Linda Thompson)
09 The Neasden Hornpipe [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
10 The World Is a Wonderful Place (Richard & Linda Thompson)
11 Napoleon's Dream (Richard & Linda Thompson)
12 Poppy-Leaf Hornpipe [Instrumental] (Richard & Linda Thompson)
13 Shaky Nancy (Richard & Linda Thompson)
14 Angel of Death (Richard & Linda Thompson)
15 You Gotta Hi De Ho (Richard & Linda Thompson)
16 The Wild Side of Life (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ii9odAKj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/54gOv6o7rs3uKLS/file

The cover art photo is from their appearance at The Old Grey Whistle Test in London on March 7, 1975. I later used the Krea AI program to improve the image.

Richard & Linda Thompson - Shady Lies - Non-Album Tracks (1971-1972)

Today (as I write this in September 2018) is the release date for "13 Rivers," a new studio album by Richard Thompson.

In celebration of that, I want to post more of his stuff. I posted one album of his a while back, but I want to start posting things systematically. That means going back to the start of his solo career around 1971, when he left Fairport Convention. (I'm dealing with that band separately.)

In 1971, Richard Thompson was only casual acquaintances with the singer Linda Peters. (They'd met in 1969.) But by 1972, they would link up musically and romantically. They would get married that same year and she would change her name to Linda Thompson. That's the name she's used ever since. (To be consistent, I'm using her "Thompson" name instead of her "Peters" name in all of the mp3 tags.) This album covers the two years of them musically joining forces. 

In 1972 Richard Thompson, put out his first solo album, "Henry the Human Fly." Only after that did he begin putting out albums with Linda. So some of the songs here are outtakes from that album, or other random projects he was a part of at the time.

Seven songs come from the 1972 "Rock On" album, by the Bunch. (The last one here is a bonus track.) This was a diverse group of British folk rock musicians. The album was all cover songs of rock and roll classics. There were four lead singers on the album. The album is a mixed bag overall, but I've selected the best songs that are sung by either Richard or Linda. I guess working on the album together was the opportunity that kindled their romance and led to them getting married later that year. One song, "When Will You Be Loved," is a duet between Linda and the legendary folk singer Sandy Denny.

The next album in this series will feature all Richard & Linda Thompson material from 1972 and into 1973. But even though the songs of this album come from different sources and many don't feature them together, it's all good music and important in showing how Richard Thompson's long, great solo career got started.

01 Albion Sunrise (Richard Thompson)
02 You Got What You Wanted (Richard Thompson)
03 Someone Else’s Fancy (Richard Thompson)
04 Bad News Is All the Wind Can Carry (Richard Thompson)
05 Amazon Queen (Richard Thompson)
06 Restless Boy (Richard & Linda Thompson)
07 Sweet Little Rock and Roller (Bunch)
08 The Loco-Motion (Bunch)
09 Crazy Arms (Bunch)
10 My Girl in the Month of May (Bunch)
11 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Bunch)
12 When Will I Be Loved (Bunch)
13 High School Confidential (Bunch)
14 Shady Lies (Richard & Linda Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Kuy1uKfb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/dmf6pdMbvV9HDo6/file

Re: the cover art, I originally used a black and white photo that I tinted. I found very few good photos of this duo in their early years together, and pretty much all of them lack color. Many months later, I found a different black and white photo I liked more, and colorized it. It's from 1974. I later used the Krea AI program to improve the image.