Richard Thompson new director of Meltdown

Richard Thompson  

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: MELTDOWN FESTIVAL

Richard Thompson has been appointed the artistic director of the Southbank Centre's Meltdown Festival

The Southbank Centre has announced that Richard Thompson will be the artistic director of the 17th Meltdown festival in 2010, taking place in the concert halls and spaces of London’s riverside arts centre, including the Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Festival.

After a run of rock and pop artists including David Bowie, Morrissey, Patti Smith, Jarvis Cocker and Massive Attack, avant-garde legend Ornette Coleman took charge of Southbank Centre’s iconic festival last year – hailed by Metro as “fantastically multi-layered” and by The Guardian as “one of the best Meltdowns in years”.

Now in 2010, Meltdown’s curatorial baton passes to an extraordinary artist who first emerged in 1967 as a founder member of British folk-rock innovators Fairport Convention, who has since spent over 40 years defying musical categorisation and convention.

Thompson began a solo career in 1972, beginning with the bold Henry the Human Fly, and has gone on to produce a body of work that challenges, delights and amazes in equal measure.

He has now written and recorded over 400 songs marked by consistent intelligence, taste and emotional resonance and has succeeded in becoming one of the most distinctive and iconoclastic guitar virtuosos, whether playing acoustic or electric guitar, performing solo or in a group.

With the full line-up for the annual festival still to be announced, the possibilities as to what Richard Thompson might select or choose to perform himself are highly intriguing. This year’s director grew up in North London, listening to Django Reinhardt, Fats Waller, Les Paul, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong from his father’s jazz record collection but simultaneously embraced the rock and roll music of Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Such is the eclectic diversity of his career that one of his most recent projects has been a song cycle featuring the double bass in honour of long time colleague and friend, Danny Thompson, Cabaret of Souls, a musical chronicle of a talent contest set in Hell, performed in 2009 with a chamber orchestra. Thompson also created the music to Werner Herzog's 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, plus its recent prequel The Grizzly Man Diaries.

Nothing exemplifies Thompson’s versatility more than his occasional journeys through a 1000 Years of Popular Music, successfully toured here in 2009:

The Guardian commenting: "He manages to convey the electrifying energy of rock’n’roll, the cheek of music hall and the sass of swing, all with the same aching precision."

Named by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the Top 20 Guitarists of all-time and the recipient of both an Ivor Novello Award for Songwriting and the 2006 BBC Lifetime Achievement Award, Richard Thompson’s work is admired by such artists as David Byrne, REM, Bonnie Raitt and Elvis Costello.

From his teenage years in Fairport Convention, to his playing on classic albums by Nick Drake, Sandy Denny and John Martyn, to duo work with his then-wife, Linda Thompson (including the exquisite Pour Down Like Silver and the devastating Shoot Out the Lights), he reached a new level of critical and commercial success in the 80s and 90s during his Capitol Records period, recording timeless songs like 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, Waltzing's For Dreamers and Beeswing and such classic albums Mock Tudor, Amnesia and Rumour & Sigh.

Thompson’s recordings since 2000, released independently, have been no less memorable, the intimate, acoustic Front Parlour Ballads, sandwiched between two electric master classes, 2003s The Old Kit Bag and 2007s Sweet Warrior, featuring one of Richard’s most provocative songs, Dad’s Gonna Kill Me, a vivid evocation of the Iraq War.

Richard Thompson's astounding body of work now amounts to some 40 albums typically mixing emotional intensity and lyrical wit, underpinned by such a singular acoustic and electric guitar delivery that Newsweek recently commented, “like all genuine art, it satisfies completely.”

Despite dividing his time between London and Los Angeles for the last 20 years, Richard Thompson has never lost his ‘Englishness’ or his belief that we need emphasise our regional and cultural roots wherever we reside and should celebrate the differences and sheer scope of all music. We can expect nothing less at MELTDOWN 2010.

Richard Thompson, the 17th Director of Southbank Centre’s Meltdown, said:

"I am very excited to be hosting this year's Meltdown at Southbank Centre. The wide-ranging programme reflects many of my interests and influences across many musical, visual and literary styles, and should provide some unique moments, unusual collaborations and juxtapositions. All this in the place where I saw my first concert in 1961 - such an honour!"

Jude Kelly, Artistic Director, Southbank Centre, said:

"From the precociously talented 17 year-old with folk-rock pioneers Fairport Convention, through his inspired partnership with Linda Thompson to classic solo albums and brilliantly crafted songs covered by the likes of Elvis Costello, David Byrne and REM, few artists can claim to have maintained such musical virtuosity and songwriting excellence for so long. We are delighted and honoured that Richard Thompson has accepted our invitation to curate Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival.”

Jane Beese, Senior Music Programmer, Southbank Centre, said:

“Whether penning such classics as Walking On A Wire, Dimming Of The Day or Meet On The Ledge, adding sublime guitar to Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter, no-one associated with the folk tradition is also so highly regarded by fans and critics alike as a genuine 'guitar hero', able to juxtapose his fiery electric side with that more pensive acoustic mood. Richard Thompson’s sheer versatility as a performer and renowned integrity make us wonder why he hasn’t directed Meltdown before now.”