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Post by personunknown on Oct 30, 2024 11:30:24 GMT
Excellent autobiography about Britain's best kept secret. Concerns itself mainly with his musical formation 67 to 75 but also looks at his childhood years. A stutterer at 11 due to his Father's aggression (a copper, natch). Exquisite prose, recalling his life from the dusty attic of his mind. Honest,funny and sad in Henry The Human Fly the lowest selling Island label record ever and the dreadful Fairport Convention van crash that took drummer Martin Lamble and Thompson's girlfriend. Well recommended.
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Post by Lord Emsworth on Oct 30, 2024 11:47:15 GMT
Thanks PU. I've got a copy but not got round to it yet
Your post has pushed it higher up the list
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Post by Billy Idle on Oct 30, 2024 19:37:27 GMT
Meant to check this out thanks for the reminder /
Does it mention Hugh Cornwell ?
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Post by personunknown on Oct 30, 2024 20:52:41 GMT
Mentions Cornwell first chapter and then later in the book. Firm friends from their teenage years despite their musical styles being very different.
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Post by personunknown on Oct 30, 2024 21:37:35 GMT
Emil and the Detectives. Cornwell holding Hofner bass, Thompson on right of picture.  |
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Post by Lord Emsworth on Oct 31, 2024 8:12:24 GMT
Emil and the Detectives. Cornwell holding Hofner bass, Thompson on right of picture. The image didn't work but think I've seen it before How about...  Is this the one? In 1964 Hugh Cornwell joined his school band.
It wasn’t just any band. It was the band formed by Richard Thompson who would go on to form Fairport Convention.
The then 15-year-old, Hugh Cornwell posed with his Beatles style Hofner violin bass for the photo with the band called Emil and The Detectives.
Hugh Cornwell.
’I remember getting the violin bass guitar I’m holding here, I was about 15 and had saved up £50 for it. Before then I’d been playing a homemade version with a neck the thickness of a plank of wood. Richard Thompson (on the far right) suggested I learn to play bass because he was forming Emil and the Detectives (the band in the picture) and he needed a bass player, so he taught me. We were good friends from school and we played each other music that we had discovered, like the Rolling Stones and the Who. Richard’s older sister, Perri, who was the social secretary at the Hornsey College of Art in north London, would book us to play parties and pay us £30 per gig. Our biggest claim to fame was supporting Helen Sahpiro at the Ionic cinema in Golders Green. But after we took our O-level [exams] we lost touch. The next I heard he was the lead guitarist in Fairport Convention and I didn’t see him again until we both played a festival in Madrid in 2008’
Source: louderthanwar.com/great-photo-of-hugh-cornwell-in-his-school-band-with-richard-thompson/ |
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Post by Lord Emsworth on Oct 31, 2024 8:12:57 GMT
And what do you know? Now I can see your image PU and it is identical
Strange
Better twice than never
Or something
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Post by personunknown on Oct 31, 2024 9:58:10 GMT
Thompson is a bit sardonic over Cornwell's claim that the two of them don't see each other for over thirty years. He puts it down to Hugh not wanting to have his picture taken with a sufi folk rock hippy during the height of the punk years.
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Post by Lord Emsworth on Oct 31, 2024 10:44:42 GMT
Thompson is a bit sardonic over Cornwell's claim that the two of them don't see each other for over thirty years. He puts it down to Hugh not wanting to have his picture taken with a sufi folk rock hippy during the height of the punk years. Can well believe Nothing's going to skewer your punk cred quicker than being seen with an old hippy in 1977 |
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Post by jsm on Oct 31, 2024 22:14:37 GMT
Was the drummer's name Dave? Look like it says The Amalgamation Dave on the drum head
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Post by Billy Idle on Nov 1, 2024 10:50:27 GMT
Possibly a borrowed drum kit ?
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Post by personunknown on Nov 1, 2024 22:35:56 GMT
There is photo in the book of them playing live and Thompson comments that they were called Amalgamation for about a week. And yes, the drummer's name was Dave.
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Post by Lord Emsworth on Nov 5, 2024 15:49:50 GMT
I've started listening to the audiobook of Beeswing read by Richard Thompson himself
As PU says, very enjoyable
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Post by personunknown on Nov 5, 2024 16:54:27 GMT
The deeper I got into this, though very enjoyable, it is his take on Fairport and not the more objective works such as Patrick Humphreys or Clinton Heylin. Sandy Denny was never fired from Fairport as Thompson states, she left of her own accord to form Fotheringay and to write all her own material.
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Post by Lord Emsworth on Nov 5, 2024 18:06:11 GMT
Yes. I’ve noticed a few little inaccuracies eg Highgate Odeon, which never existed, he’s getting confused with Muswell Hill Odeon.
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