Richard Thompson charts 1,000 years of music

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

What started with a request from Playboy for a list of last millennium's best music has turned into a wide-ranging show for Richard Thompson. Richard Thompson 7:30 p.m. today (songs from his own repertoire) 7:30 p.m. Saturday (songs from his "1,000 Years of Popular Music" project) Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts $30 (advance), $35 (door) for single shows; $50 (advance) for both shows. 532-8700, 262-2175, 591-2901 Also: opening act The Bobby Ingano Trio

And Playboy magazine? Its editors asked Richard Thompson to shoot them a list of the Top 10 greatest songs of the millennium.

"It was the end of the millennium, so the buzzword had to be in there," said Thompson. "(But) that wasn't what they had in mind. (I knew) they were thinking more of the last 25 years."

Ever the intelligent music scholar, Thompson called their bluff with a list that reached all the way back to good 'ol 1068 A.D. Playboy, of course, treated it with the respect it would pictures of a fully-clothed girl next door: They didn't print it.

"I think they thought I was undermining the Playboy philosophy," said Thompson, cracking wise from his home in California. "But I just took them at their word."

Playboy's loss wound up Thompson's gain. Not long after, a slightly evolved version of the list begat a Thompson performance of it at Los Angeles' Getty Museum. Positive notice for the show begat a 2003 live recording and tour called "1,000 Years of Popular Music."

This weekend, the singer-songwriter-guitarist returns to Honolulu for a first-time-ever (and only-in-Hawai'i) live experiment. Back-to-back performances will feature a solo trip through Thompson's brilliant three-decade-plus career tonight, and an excursion through "1,000 Years" Saturday.

More than 35 years have passed since Thompson founded pioneering British folk-rock band Fairport Convention. "Shoot Out The Lights," his final and, arguably, best of several critically praised recordings with former wife and music partner Linda Thompson, was released in 1982. The "1,000 Years" project is the most recent of more than two dozen solo efforts since.

Thompson, 55, has never had a hit mainstream album or single, and has never really courted either. His small, somewhat cultish fan base still can't get enough of hearing great Thompson songs like "52 Vincent Black Lightning," "Beeswing" and "Valerie" on tour.

So you'd think the scariest five words imaginable for Thompson devotees would be: "He's doing Britney Spears covers!" Instead, they've been intrigued. Thompson has toured "1,000 Years" for more than a year.

On album and tour, "1,000 Years" moves efficiently and tastefully on its merry path through the centuries. Starting with the oldest-known round in the English language, a 13th-century hit around the monastery called "Sumer is Icumen In," Thompson ends the field trip somewhere after 2000's "Oops! I Did It Again." In between are songs written or made famous by 16th-century cathedral musician Orazio Vecchi, Henry Purcell, Gilbert and Sullivan, The Who, The Beatles, Squeeze, Prince and ABBA.

His criteria for "1,000 Years" included "having a good historical spread (and) not skipping too many centuries, playing stuff that's enjoyable to play" and making sure arrangements were "interesting on an acoustic guitar."

Thompson doesn't claim to be an expert in selecting the best music of the last millennium or performing it. But as a longtime music fan, he's having serious fun doing both.

"In a sense, the title of the evening is cheating," said Thompson. "It's not necessarily popular music. It's not necessarily a 'best of' list. It's really just personal choices."

Which begged a question of what exactly moved him about "Oops!"

"Well, I think it's a good song, you know?" said Thompson. "I think Britney's version actually wasn't that bad. ... If you look at the bare bones of the song — the chord structure, the melody, and the lyrics — I think it's a good popular song."

Indeed, Thompson's clever rearrangement of "Oops!" boasts a downright scary urgency so far removed from Spears' kittenish take, that he sounds almost stalker-ish.

"I find it hard to be kittenish, so I'm just being whoever I am. Whatever that is," explained Thompson, chuckling.

The set list for "1,000 Years" has changed much since the tour began, and varies from show to show. One recent addition to his highly evolved set list even managed to finally break into Thompson's 13-year-old son Jack and friends' teenage list of all-things-cool.

"When they heard me doing (Bowling For Soup's) '1985' they were deeply, deeply impressed," said an obviously proud Thompson. "They thought it was incredibly hip. I got new respect."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8005.