Austin City Limits: Live From Austin, TX: Richard Thompson

They Say...

Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide

There are few more reliable live performers than Richard Thompson, who never fails to impress on-stage in any context, and in recent years Thompson has been issuing a steady stream of live recordings (available through his website and at live shows), finally filling a void that bootleggers had been attempting to satisfy for some time. Live from Austin, TX is a slightly different animal than most of Thompson's self-released live offerings -- while many of Thompson's live offerings were culled from several dates from the same tour, this is a direct audio recording of the set he played at a taping for the great PBS music series Austin City Limits on July 2, 2001. It's also available through normal retail outlets, which means more people will be able to get hold of it, though in some ways it isn't quite as strong as Semi-Detached Mock Tudor, Thompson's 2002 release which includes much of the same material and a stronger, more dynamic sound mix. Still, there are those who will argue you can't have too many recordings of Thompson singing his songs or offering up his dazzling guitar work, and it's difficult not to agree after giving Live from Austin, TX a spin -- his interplay with bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Michael Jerome is remarkable, his wiry guitar playing is largely sublime (though the version of "Bathsheba Smiles" features that modern rarity, Thompson actually flubbing a phrase!), and the set list strikes a lovely balance between material from Mock Tudor and gems from his back catalog. In short, this disc features Richard Thompson playing 15 excellent songs in concert, and really, how far wrong can you go with that?