Richard Thompson’s memoir is worth reading for the ‘Fairport years’ alone
One of the more surreal conversations I have had with a musical hero of mine came in 2017 when I found myself arguing with Linda Thompson about the merits of Nick Drake’s music compared with her own and her ex-husband Richard Thompson’s. She suggested Nick’s had a quality that was missing in the work she and Richard created, which explained its posthumous popularity. I maintained that Drake’s music appealed largely to coeds and other hopeless romantics, lacking the lyrical depth and musical breadth of the six albums the star-crossed couple made between 1973 and 1981, from the timeless I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight to the equally acclaimed
