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In recent years, legendary British musician Richard Thompson has challenged himself by presenting a few all-request shows. Fans could request his popular songs or just about anything from this acclaimed artist who has previously delivered a “1000 Years of Popular Music” concerts, where he performed covers ranging from 13th-century celebrations of summer to Britney Spears’ “Oops . . . I Did It Again.”
“I’ve been doing all-request shows for a while now,” Thompson explains, back in Hawaii after touring New Zealand and Australia. “It’s basically anything goes, my stuff or anyone else’s.”
So it could be “Stairway to Heaven” or “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”?
“I haven’t had ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ but I’ve got ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ from ‘South Pacific,’ ‘Whipping Post’ and Gilbert and Sullivan. People request the strangest things. And sometimes, of course, I’m stumped, but if I half know something, I’ll give it a go.”
One of Britain’s most talented guitarists and songwriters, Thompson routinely draws praise from critics and fellow musicians. Ever since he first began melding rock and traditional folk music back in the late 1960s with the innovative group Fairport Convention, and then as a solo artist, he has plowed a unique path.
Elvis Costello has hailed him as one of the best songwriters Britain has ever produced, and John Mellencamp noted that Thompson could express more in one line than he could in an entire song.
Artists who have covered his songs include Robert Plant, Bonnie Raitt, R.E.M., Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Graham Nash. His dazzling guitar playing prompted Rolling Stone magazine to place Thompson among the Top 20 of Greatest Guitarists of All Time, describing him as “a perennial dark-horse contender for the title of greatest living rock guitarist.”
He’s even been feted by Queen Elizabeth II, who ordained him in 2011 at Buckingham Palace as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for his services to music.
But maybe one of his greatest honors was the day in 2013 when Bob Dylan paid homage to his fellow revered artist by playing one of Thompson’s most well-known songs, “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” at a concert in Michigan.
“It was an unbelievable honor that he would even know about it or think of doing it,” Thompson marvels. “It was stunning. I was in disbelief.”
The two musicians had been touring together, but Thompson had already left the gig when Dylan played his song. “When people told me he had done it, I thought they were kidding, pull the other one,” he continues. “I was first on the tour, and at the end of the performance, we were on the bus driving to the next show.”
Born in London to a Scottish family, Thompson readily absorbed highland culture. “I think it’s really important to have musical roots that are preferably indigenous to where you come from,” he says. “That’s going to resonate the best, and also the area where you’ll probably be most successful as an interpreter.”
A modern troubadour, Thompson began his career with Fairport Convention, one of Britain’s most revered groups. In a time when most British bands were simply reinterpreting American blues, Fairport created a uniquely British sound fusing rock with traditional folk.
“The steps that Fairport made reinterpreting traditional music in a contemporary way was the most revolutionary thing that I could think of,” he says. “There didn’t seem to be anything more radical out there.”
After playing a pivotal role on brilliant albums like “What We Did on Our Holidays” and “Unhalfbricking,” Thompson left Fairport, eventually teaming with his wife, magnificent singer/composer Linda Thompson. The duo released a handful of influential albums including “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight,” “Pour Down Like Silver” and “Shoot Out the Lights.”
Rolling Stone hailed “Shoot Out the Lights” as an “Eighties masterpiece, on which the song writing, singing and Richard’s extraordinary guitar playing combine to make majestic, epic music.”
In the ’90s, he began releasing a number of critically acclaimed recordings. Reviewing his 1993 three-CD retrospective, “Watching the Dark,” Guitar Player raved, “While most rock guitarists peak young or ripen gradually, Richard Thompson can boast decades of unalloyed brilliance.”
An astonishing guitarist (the Los Angeles Times once hailed him as “the best electric guitarist since Jimi Hendrix”), he plays a unique, intense, yet sparsely deployed Celtic-flavored rock style, and crafts vibrant songs with a deeply rooted, timeless quality. A reviewer in Entertainment Weekly marveled how he could have been a busker at Stonehenge.
In the last couple of years, he’s released the albums “Electric” and “Acoustic Classics,” collaborated with members of his extended musical family for “Family,” and worked with Cat Stevens on his latest “Tell ‘Em I’m Gone.”
“I’ve known him forever and worked with him from time to time,” Thompson says about the Stevens’ collaboration. “I used to eat at his dad’s restaurant (in London) in the ’60s. He called me up and asked if I would like to do something on it, and it was great fun. I played on three or four things and we did the song ‘I Was Raised in Babylon’ as a duo, and it turned out really well.”
“Acoustic Classics” showcases a collection of Thompson’s most well-known songs performed solo, from early material like “I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight” and “Down Where the Drunkards Roll,” to later classics like “From Galway to Graceland” and “1952 Vincent Black Lightning.”
“The idea was to have something to sell at my acoustic live shows,” he explains. “I really didn’t have anything that reflected what I play on stage in an acoustic show. It was just going to be for the live shows, but the record company heard it and wanted to release it, and it ended up at No. 9 in the U.K. album charts. Obviously there was a niche to be filled and I hadn’t quite realized it.”
Returning to the Maui Arts & Cultural Center after a six-year absence, Thompson can always be counted on to deliver mesmerizing concerts.
“He regaled his audience with many of his most revered songs and guitar performances that were at times indescribably spectacular and that turned a solo-acoustic show into something transcendent,” praised a recent Kansas City Star review. “Few songwriters share Thompson’s lyrical dexterity. Even fewer guitarists in rock or folk can play like Thompson.”
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Due to demand, Diana Ross will play two MACC shows, with June 15 added to the June 14 concert. It’s kind of amazing that she has never played Hawaii before, not even when she was with the Supremes. But she has recorded a tune in concert relating to the islands, “Aux Iles Hawaii,” first sung by Josephine Baker in the 1930s. Tickets go on sale on Friday and are available at the box office, by calling 242-7469 or by visiting www.mauiarts.org.
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A benefit for the Punana Leo o Maui Hawaiian Language Immersion Preschool, the 28th annual ho’omau “I Ulu No Ka LaLa I Ke Kumu,” will be presented Saturday at the Maui Nui Botanical Gardens in Kahului.
The entertainment lineup features kumu hula Keali’i Reichel and Halau Ke’alaokamaile, Mana’o Company with Bruddah Waltah, Kuana Torres Kahele, Na Pua ‘Elima, Komakakino, Kainani Kahaunaele and Ke Kula Kaiapuni o Maui.
Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door, with keiki younger than 10 admitted for free. Ticket outlets include YNVU Clothing Company in Kahului, Native Intelligence in Wailuku, Pukalani Superette, Hanzawa’s Variety Store in Haiku, ‘Ulalena in Lahaina, Mana Foods in Paia and Hi-Tech Surf Sports in Kihei. The event runs from 9 a.m. to sunset.
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The Maui Chamber Orchestra will present an all-Mozart concert featuring Lotus Dancer performing the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 3 p.m. Sunday in the Historic Iao Theater in Wailuku.
The concert will open with the overture to the opera “La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus).” After intermission, Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor will be performed.
Maestro Robert E. Wills will host a “Conversation with the Conductor” at 1:30 p.m. Sunday prior to the concert. Tickets are $25, $30, $35, $40 and $45 and are available at www.MauiChamberOrchestra.org or at the Iao Theater box office. Call 242-6969.