The issue was, however, easily solved. Thompson’s next bundle of albums, starting with the sublime I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, featured the voice of his first wife Linda, who he married in 1972, and, while Thompson still contributed in the vocal department, he probably felt much more comfortable out of the vocal spotlight.
Dating back to his time in Fairport, Thompson tended to write well for the right female voice.
I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight and the albums that followed (Hokey Pokey, Pour Down Like Silver, First Light, Shoot Out the Lights and, to a lesser extent, Sunnyvista) all contain gems in the writing and vocal departments as well as RT’s stunning guitar work before the partnership dissolved in extremely ugly circumstances.
That, however, was more than twenty-five years ago, and in the intervening period Thompson has carefully built a career which will hopefully roll onwards into the future presenting his work in a variety of carefully crafted contexts.
Regardless of his electric guitar virtuosity, economic factors have meant that much of the past quarter-century has seen Thompson performing in solo acoustic mode, which has resulted in a couple of interesting developments.
As the sole focal point on stage, Thompson has been forced to overcome a couple of factors that had, up to that point, been negatives rather than positives. In the process he’s developed a wry on-stage persona that probably draws from a degree of discomfort in the spotlight with a mildly self-deprecating sense of humour that is, in its own quiet way, quite charming.
If the patter doesn’t vary greatly from night to night (a complaint I’ve heard expressed by people who’ve been in the fortunate position of being able to catch RT on multiple occasions on the same tour), at least it provides the guy with an on-stage persona that allows him to concentrate on performing rather than presentation. That’s fine with me. As far as I can see, the audience is there for the songs, the guitar work and the increasingly impressive vocals. Anything above and beyond that is a bonus.