Teddy Thompson plays solo in Manchester
At the end of a benefit show in New Jersey last month, Richard Thompson invited his son Teddy onstage to perform with him. The elder Thompson is folk music royalty, while Teddy Thompson is a singer-songwriter who over two decades has dipped his toes in many musical ponds including country, pop and, on his 2020 LP Heartbreaker Please, Muscle Shoals soul.
The song they led off with that night, however, wasn’t one of those genres. Instead, they covered Eddie Cochran’s “Cut Across Shorty,” a rousing rave-up from rock ’n’ roll’s early days.
This suited Teddy Thompson perfectly. When he was twelve and his friends were hooked on MTV fare like Madonna, he was time traveling. “1955 to 1959 … that’s all I listened to,” he said by phone recently. “I thought, this is my first taste of what music is, and if it’s this good, I can’t wait to hear more. It turns out actually that’s as good as it got … everything I’ve heard since then has been a sort of slight letdown.”
He eventually learned to embrace artists of his own era like Culture Club and Crowded House. This was a reflection of what his mother, Linda Thompson, termed a “catholic” music taste that ran in his family. “It doesn’t matter where it comes from,” he said. “If you like it, you like it.”
For his own material, which he’ll perform solo at an upcoming show in Manchester, Thompson remains committed to just one thing, which in his telling is, well, everything.
“When it comes down to it, I’m really mostly enamored and focused on the song itself, hopefully something that is a strong suit,” he said. “I write the songs with just me and the guitar and then, depending on the album, sometimes it leans one way or the other.”
On Thompson’s latest project he collaborated with Jenni Muldaur, another child of a famous musician, to cover classic country duet partners. Three songs each from Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, they recorded it mostly to pass time during the pandemic, then put it out online. “We sort of half-ass released it,” he said.
“Our mutual friend David Mansfield, who is a real autodidactic and renaissance man, really put the whole thing together,” Thomson continued. “By the time we finished it, we sort of realized, ‘Oh, this should be a record.’ So we’re in the process now of getting a deal together to put it out … hopefully next year.”
Thompson’s worked with a lot of musicians over the years, both as musician and producer. His production began with his mother’s 2002 return Fashionably Late. Since then he’s helmed Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer’s haunting Not Dark Yet, three LPs from Dori Freeman, and Roseanne Reid’s 2019 Trails.
When asked what draws him behind the console, Thompson is a bit self-deprecating.
“I think it’s a little bit to do with not being very disciplined in my own writing and direction,” he said. “I’m not somebody who’s terribly focused and ambitious and has a real long-term view of what my career should be, when my next album should come out, all that stuff. So I think I’ve turned to collaborations in between things. When I don’t feel like I’m ready to make another record of my own, it’s a musical project to do in the meantime.”
This logic didn’t apply on 2014’s Family, a record Thompson conceived, produced and played on. He was joined by his mother and father, a once-acclaimed musical duo who divorced when he was young, his sister Kami, nephew Zak Hobbs, half-brother Jack Thompson, and a few other relations. The New York Times wrote brilliantly about the often fraught effort.
“Even if you’re not a musician, you can just imagine trying to do any kind of project with your entire family; there’s gonna be difficult moments,” he said. “There were a lot of emotions involved, mostly just for me. Because it was my idea, I was in charge, it was all on my head … it was pathetic in a way, as it really was enjoyable once it all came together.”
Heartbreaker Please was a breakup album, and Thompson thinks the best songs come from pain in relationships.
“That’s just what we feel the most and it’s the subject that everybody’s drawn to,” he said. “I guess some people are writing songs about other things but it’s tough for me to do anything really heartfelt when it’s not about the heart, if you see what I mean. I tend to write more songs about me and my woes, but it never seems boring or old to me … it’s endlessly interesting and fascinating and moving.”
Teddy Thompson
When: Saturday, Feb. 25, 8 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $29 at palacetheatre.org
Featured photo: Teddy Thompson. Courtesy photo.
