Richard Thompson
From Celtic roots to rock royalty, this British national treasure isn’t resting on his laurels
On March 1, 2005, Queen Elizabeth II opened the doors of Buckingham Palace to the U.K. music industry. Rock luminaries including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck were introduced to Her Majesty, along with another, though lesser known guitar great, Richard Thompson. After asking Led Zep’s Page, “Are you a guitarist?” the queen met Thompson, who had been introduced as a singer and songwriter. “How lovely for you,” she responded. “It was a big stand-up party in these huge reception rooms with the walls studded with Rembrandts and Caravaggios,” Thompson recalls. “The queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and other royals were circulating very informally, there was no bowing and scraping. The queen would just slide up to you and say, ‘How are you?’ and ‘What do you do?’ It was great, I got my 40 seconds with the queen and she was lovely.
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