Shoot Out the Lights - Richard Thompson on Elvis Costello's Spectacle

Richard Thompson sings "Shoot Out the Lights" with Elvis Costello and the Imposters on Spectacle, December 2009

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• shoot
• lights
• richard
• thompson
• elvis
• costello
• spectacle

[SteveFE62]

Tell you what's great about this: here's a gent in his mature years, shall we say, playing a song of his from 1974 in 2009 and still as intense and credible as the original. Not many artists get to keep going that long for starters, and a lot fewer get to retain their integrity and not become a cabaret act.

Richard Thompson's the real deal, somebody who never went for the big money but kept it totally real and his vision intact.

[BucksStudent]

@Limesquibbo Knopler took most of his style from Richard. You know nothing about music. Jazz musicians, classical musicians, and blues musicians all play out of key at some point. Those who follow formula lack emotion; Mark Knopfler and Clapton both do it at some point. Clapton says Richard is his favorite guitarist, and Knopfler came LONG after Richard hit the scene.

[HammerPoop]

@SteveFE62 Shoot out the Lights is from 1982.

[daf827]

@FullMontyUK Did you go to school with Richard? I learned only recently on Beesweb that "Thommo" was his nickname in high school!

[BucksStudent]

@daf827 Knopfler has used a pick through a great deal of his career, though. His legendary stuff is all fingers, but Richard has used all fingers in some instances as well. In the end, both men use a good deal of compression in the studio, so the difference in tone is a bit more minimal for picking styles. I'm always a little peeved because RT used the out-of-phase position for years, but MK is more associated with it.

[SteveFE62]

@daf827 Ta, except I got the date of the song wrong! Senility hits all of us :-) An edit post function would be handy!

[daf827]

@BucksStudent It's interesting to note that RT and MK are contemporaries (both born in 1949) – although Richard had a decade head start musically going back to Fairport. One big technical difference: Knopfler is almost strictly fingerstyle while Richard uses primarily hybrid pick-and-fingers. No doubt Knopfler was inspired by RT to some degree. There's a lot of emotion in both of their playing.

[daf827]

@SteveFE62 You really hit the nail on the head about Richard. Couldn't have said it better!

[wildwit]

Wow, unbelievable sound....can't stop listening, nice video thanks

[TheIkaraCult]

its impossible for RT to be anything other than transendant, but the version from Across a crowded room is better.