This is a concert from 1991, the year Thompson released the studio album "Rumour and Sigh." It got a lot of critical acclaim, and I believe its probably his best solo album. This concert heavily leans into that album, with eight songs out of the 13 songs coming from it. Note also this was performed with a full band.
There was one problem with this recording, and that was the very common problem of the lead vocals being too low in the mix. So, as usual, I fixed that with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program.
When I first posted this album, I posted a version that was a little under an hour long, and I thought that was all there was. But a commenter sent me a different version that was missing two songs ("Backlash Love Affair" and "1952 Vincent Black Lightning"), but also had two other songs I didn't have ("Oh I Swear" and "Crash the Party"). I compared the different versions and found that it was definitely the same concert, with the exact same banter and so forth. But it seems the BBC played different versions at different times with different edits. I did my best to put everything together to create the longest version yet available.
The music here is unreleased, and the sound quality is close to excellent.
This album is an hour and 11 minutes long. The BBC edited down a longer concert to fit in an hour-long radio show slot. But this is longer than an hour, since it comes from two slightly different versions.
UPDATE: On October 15, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file, after adding the two songs and making other edits as described above.
01 Read about Love (Richard Thompson)
02 Backlash Love Affair (Richard Thompson)
03 Gypsy Love Songs (Richard Thompson)
04 talk (Richard Thompson)
05 Keep Your Distance (Richard Thompson)
06 talk (Richard Thompson)
07 Tear Stained Letter (Richard Thompson)
08 talk (Richard Thompson)
09 Oh I Swear [Edit] (Richard Thompson & Shawn Colvin)
10 talk (Richard Thompson)
11 talk (Richard Thompson)
12 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (Richard Thompson)
13 talk (Richard Thompson)
14 I Misunderstood (Richard Thompson)
15 I Feel So Good (Richard Thompson)
16 Valerie (Richard Thompson)
17 Mother Knows Best (Richard Thompson)
18 Mystery Wind (Richard Thompson)
19 Crash the Party (Richard Thompson)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/o2uXCNZc
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/uk6qAJUpgQK1y39/file
The cover photo was taken at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, California, on July 17, 1991.
Thanks
ReplyDeleteI have a version that includes "Oh I Swear" (with Shawn Colvin) as track 5 and ends with "Crash the Party" after "Mystery Wind" instead of "Mother Knows Best", if you tell me where to send it..
ReplyDeleteDone
DeleteThanks!
DeleteI have the other version as well, which was labelled as 16th May 1991. For the tracks in common, these are undoubtedly the same performances. (Confusingly, Setlist.com has separate entries for the two dates.) I wonder if the taping was in May but the broadcast in August.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I checked, and it's definitely the same show, note for note on all the shared songs (which are most of them). I'm sure the BBC just reedited it at some point. I'm thinking they might have done that because they didn't include "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" in the original broadcast, and that soon turned into one of his most popular songs (if not THE most popular), so it would make sense they would redo it to include that. But that's just my speculation.
DeleteFor sure it's the same show. Question is: which date is correct?
DeleteOne possible explanation for having two dates is date of recording vs date of broadcast.
Someone made a really great list of all the RT concerts. You can see part of it here:
Deletehttps://concerts.fandom.com/wiki/Richard_Thompson_Concerts_1990s
I checked that, and it lists at as happening in both May and August. Furthermore, I thought I'd check if he was in London at the time, and it makes sense for both dates. So your guess is as good as mine. :(