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Richard Thompson travels US with 'Sweet Warrior'
British singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson has a new album on deck and about three weeks worth of US dates to support it.
The tireless performer will kick things off June 8 in Aspen, CO, and make his way to the East Coast into July. Shows include a June 15 stop at Manchester, TN's Bonnaroo Festival. Thompson will then head for Europe, but will be back in the States for a few gigs into next year. US dates are listed below; overseas shows can be found at his website.
Thompson's new record, "Sweet Warrior," is scheduled to hit the streets next week. The set, his first electric album since 2003's "The Old Kit Bag," mixes some of his most memorable recordings with a batch of new songs, including the politically charged "Dad's Gonna Kill Me."
With tongue partially planted in cheek, Thompson said he chose to plug in on the current album because, "I tend to organize my writing in piles, and the electric pile was becoming especially big, so that's the one I chose to go to."
The Grammy-nominated performer's career stretches back to the late '60s, when he co-founded British folk-rock band Fairport Convention. In the '70s, Thompson recorded several albums with his then-wife, Linda Peters, including "Shoot Out the Lights," which regularly makes critics' lists of the top 10 records of all time.
For the past 20-plus years, Thompson has performed solo, earning accolades including an Ivor Novello Award for Songwriting and the 2006 BBC Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also named by Rolling Stone as one of the Top 20 Guitarists of all time.
