Richard & Linda Thompson ≡ Shoot Out The Lights (2010)

Richard & Linda Thompson ≡ Shoot Out The Lights
Location: United Kingdom
Released: March 15, 1982
Recorded: November 1981 at Olympic Studios, London
Genre: Rock
Length: 38:16
Origin Label: Hannibal
Producer: Joe Boyd
Album release: October 11, 2010
Record Label: Rhino (http://www.rhino.com)
Notes:
Release history:
◊ In 1991, Hannibal released Shoot Out the Lights on CD with the b-side "Living in Luxury" as a bonus track on the first run. This song is not included on any subsequent editions of the album. In 1993, Rykodisc released it as part of their AU20 Mastering Gold CD series. Dr. Toby Mountain of Northeastern Digital Recording, Inc., in Southborough, Massachusetts using Sony's proprietary Super Bit Mapping (SBM) mastering process to reduce the digital master from 20-bit to 16-bit required for the Red Book compact disc standard. Dr. Toby Mountain again remastered the album in 2004 for release on Super Audio CD (SACD) on Rykodisc. In 2005 the album was reissued on 180 gram vinyl by the 4 Men With Beards label. In October 2010, Rhino Handmade issued a deluxe 2CD edition of the album with 11 live bonus tracks and a 40 page booklet.
◊ Bonus disc has 11 never before released live performances.
2 CDs
◊ #9 on Rolling Stone´s ´100 Greatest Albums of the 80´
◊ #39.98 USD at Rhino website.
Linda Thompson:

Birth name: Linda Pettifer
Also known as: Linda Peters
Born: 23 August 1947 in Hackney
Origin: London, England
When Linda Pettifer was six, her family moved to a district of Glasgow.
During 1970 she had an affair with Martin Carthy, and was Joe Boyd's girlfriend in the early 1970s. Linda met Richard Thompson in 1969 but they did not record together until 1972.
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/lindathompsonmusic#!

© Author: Ken Schles

Richard Thompson: Order of the British Empire (Officer)
Born: 3 April 1949, Notting Hill Gate, London England, United Kingdom
Genres: Rock, folk rock, electric folk, hard rock, acoustic, alternative rock, folk
Occupations: Musician, singer-songwriter
Instruments: Vocals, guitar, mandolin
◊ On 5 July 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Aberdeen.
◊ Richard Thompson is a critically acclaimed, prolific songwriter (Ivor Novello Award), recipient of BBC's Lifetime Achievement Award and was named one of Rolling Stone Magazine's Top 20 Guitarists of All Time for his acoustic and electric virtuosity. Robert Plant, REM, Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, David Byrne, Del McCoury, Bonnie Raitt, and many others have recorded his work. Consistently extolled as a dazzling live performer, Thompson's live-tour CD Dream Attic received a 2011 Grammy nod.
◊ In 2010 Thompson was appointed Artistic Director of London's prestigious Meltdown Festival at South Bank Centre, received the Mojo Les Paul Award, and for his service to music - was named on the Queen's 2011 New Year Honours List as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
Playing style:
◊ Thompson makes use of the "pick and fingers" technique (sometimes referred to as "hybrid picking") where he plays bass notes and rhythm with a pick between his first finger and thumb, and adds melody and punctuation by plucking the treble strings with his fingers. He also makes use of different guitar tunings, such as (low to high) CGDGBE, DADGBE, DADGAD, and more. This enables him to adapt traditional songs, as on Strict Tempo! and 1000 Years of Popular Music. Thompson occasionally makes use of a thumb-pick, playing in fingerstyle, the most notable example being on the motorcycle ballad "1952 Vincent Black Lightning."
Website: http://www.richardthompson-music.com/
Tracklist:
01 Don't Renege On Our Love     4:16
02 Walking On A Wire     5:25
03 A Man In Need     3:33
04 Just The Motion     6:15
05 Shoot Out The Lights     5:22
06 Back Street Slide     4:30
07 Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed? (RT, LT)     4:49
08 Wall Of Death     3:42
CD 2:
01 Dargai [Live version]     3:45
02 Back Street Slide [Live version]     4:44
03 Pavanne [Live version]     5:39
04 I'll Keep It With Mine [Live version]     6:04
05 Borrowed Time [Live version]     8:52
06 Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed? [Live version]     5:30
07 I'm A Dreamer [Live version]     4:39
08 Honky Tonk Blues [Live version]     4:24
09 Shoot Out The Lights [Live version]     5:21
10 For Shame Of Doing Wrong [Live version]     10:01
11 Dimming Of The Day [Live version]     3:51
12 The Price Of Love [Live version]     5:04
The tracks on the second disc are:

01."Dargai" (J. Scott Skinner, arr. Richard Thompson)
02."Back Street Slide"
03."Pavanne" (Richard Thompson, Linda Thompson)
04."I'll Keep It With Mine" (Bob Dylan)
05."Borrowed Time"
06."Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?" (Richard Thompson, Linda Thompson)
07."I'm a Dreamer" (Sandy Denny)
08."Honky Tonk Blues" (Hank Williams)
09."Shoot Out the Lights"
10."For Shame of Doing Wrong"
11."Dimming of the Day"
12."The Price of Love" (Don Everly, Phil Everly) (bonus track)
◊ All tracks composed by Richard Thompson except where noted otherwise.
Personnel:
◊ Richard Thompson – vocals, lead guitar, accordion, hammered dulcimer
◊ Linda Thompson – vocals
◊ Simon Nicol – rhythm guitar
◊ Dave Pegg – bass on 3 6 7 8
◊ Pete Zorn – bass on 1 2 4 5, backing vocals
◊ David Mattacks – drums
Additional personnel:
◊ The Watersons (Norma, Mike, Lal, and Martin Carthy) – backing vocals
◊ Clive Gregson – backing vocals
◊ Stephen Corbett – cornet
◊ Brian Jones – cornet
◊ Phil Goodwin – tuba
◊ Stephen Barnett – trombone
◊ Mark Cutts – trombone
Personnel for the live disc of the October 2010 "de luxe" re-issue:
◊ Richard Thompson – vocals, lead guitar
◊ Linda Thompson – vocals
◊ Simon Nicol – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
◊ Pete Zorn – bass, backing vocals
◊ Dave Mattacks – drums
Description:
◊ Lock and load with a high-powered chronicle of one couple's failed marriage. Shoot Out The Lights is Richard and Linda Thompson’s final album together and, ironically, the folk-rock couple’s most artistically acclaimed and commercially successful. The album was recorded, scrapped, and rerecorded before finally emerging in 1982, arriving just around the time that the couple split up. Despite the separation, they embarked upon a U.S. tour to promote the album, delivering emotionally charged performances at every turn.
◊ Rhino Handmade reissues the couple’s legendary swan song as a two-disc deluxe edition that includes the original album along with a bonus disc of 11 unreleased live performances from the tour.
◊ SHOOT OUT THE LIGHTS’ circuitous path began in 1980 when Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty—who’d toured with the Thompsons that year—produced and financed the album, hoping it would earn the unsigned couple a new record contract. Failing to secure a record deal, the album was eventually shelved.
◊ The Thompsons persevered, signing with producer Joe Boyd’s independent Hannibal Records the following year. They quickly returned to the studio with several musicians from the Rafferty sessions—guitarist Simon Nicol, drummer Dave Mattacks, and bassist Pete Zorn—and rerecorded six songs from the previous sessions plus two new songs. In contrast to the drawn-out sessions with Rafferty, Boyd recorded the album live in just three days, an approach that highlighted the band’s spontaneity and gave the songs a palpable edge. In the reissue’s liner notes Zorn quips: “The album’s so good, we did it twice!”
◊ The release of SHOOT OUT THE LIGHTS and a planned U.S. tour were put on hold until 1982 to give Linda time to recover from the birth of the couple’s third child. Sadly, when the tour finally began that spring, the Thompsons’ marriage was over.
◊ The bonus disc documents the tumultuous tour with 11 unreleased live performances, all but one taken from shows in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California. The songs draw from the Thompsons’ records together, including three from SHOOT OUT THE LIGHTS, “Back Street Slide,” “Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed?” and the title track; “Borrowed Time” from Sunnyvista (1979); “Pavanne” from First Light (1978); and “For Shame Of Doing Wrong,” “Dargai,” and “Dimming Of The Day” from Pour Down Like Silver (1975). Several covers are also featured: Hank Williams’ “Honky Tonk Blues,” “I’m A Dreamer” by Fairport Convention singer Sandy Denny, and Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine,” a song Richard covered with Fairport Convention on 1969’s What We Did On Our Holidays.
◊ The set’s accompanying 40-page booklet includes details about the album and tour from Richard, Linda, the band, and Boyd, who recalls the fraught tour: “Linda kicked Richard in the shins during a guitar solo in Providence and threw a bottle at him in the Buffalo airport, but sang with an intensity I’d never heard before. Gone was the hesitant tone; the heartbreaking ballads poured out of her and mesmerized audiences. ◊ The band, meanwhile, kept their heads down and amazed the Yanks with their precision and power. Richard was his usual genius self, only more so.”
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PRESS about Richard Thompson:
◊ "I saw Hendrix once and it took months to recover, Thompson is the only time since that I've seen a guitarist with such fluidity and imagination." No Depression
◊ "From his early days in Fairport Convention to his imperious solo career, he is dexterous beyond measure and as tasteful as high tea at the Ritz." - BBC America
◊ "The raging speed of Hendrix and Prince, the fluidity of Clapton and Page, and the lacerating lyrics of Young and Dylan rocket Richard Thompson toward the top of any axe-slingers' list. " - ELLNORA | The Guitar Festival
◊ "In the guitar god firmament, Thompson easily takes a place beside Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. He has certainly been the most consistently imaginative English plank spanker of modern times." - Daily Mirror
◊ "A Perennial dark-horse contender for the title of greatest living rock guitarist" - Rolling Stone
◊ "Only heavyweights like Neil Young and Prince are in Thompson's league when it comes to combined prowess as a writer and a guitar player." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
◊ "Richard Thompson has been called the finest rock songwriter after Bob Dylan and the best electric guitarist since Jimi Hendrix." - L.A. Times
◊ "For my money, Richard Thompson is one of the finest artists to ever grace the music scene, a terrific songwriter and exceptional guitarist who remains severely overlooked." - Citybeat
◊ "Riveting, enlightening, witty, moving, provocative and entertaining - strongly recommended." - Time Out
◊ "Boasting a guitar tone as recognizable as Dylan's voice, the legend fuels his six-string histrionics with a dying-light rage..." - SPIN
◊ "The OBE will further restore Richard Thompson's status at the top table of British musical heroes as a folk revolutionary, one of the world's greatest guitarists, a must-see performer and one of the finest songwriters this country has ever produced." - Spectator