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://www.upload.ee/files/15852156/RichnLinT_1981_TmeRingSmeChanges_atse.zip.html

I made the album cover from a screenshot of a YouTube video of a 1981 concert performance.