Elegant piece, Carl. I like how you framed Thompson’s relatively narrow powers of characterization, particularly in contrast to his expansive playing. For maybe fifteen years, I’d see him play at every opportunity. He’s in my pantheon (and he was nice to me when I saw him on the street, trotted after him, and asked him to sign a cassette by another artist). But my ambivalence is close to yours. When I saw perform him all the time, I thought his banter was charming but sometimes distancing. He probably didn’t do this every show, but I remember it being routine for him to introduce songs with showbiz irony along the lines of, “Here’s another cheerful ditty.” I understand how that flattered the audience, of course, but I guess it seemed to underline his position as something of a genre writer. I mean, I like genre writers, but it broke the spell a bit when I was young.
Elegant piece, Carl. I like how you framed Thompson’s relatively narrow powers of characterization, particularly in contrast to his expansive playing. For maybe fifteen years, I’d see him play at every opportunity. He’s in my pantheon (and he was nice to me when I saw him on the street, trotted after him, and asked him to sign a cassette by another artist). But my ambivalence is close to yours. When I saw perform him all the time, I thought his banter was charming but sometimes distancing. He probably didn’t do this every show, but I remember it being routine for him to introduce songs with showbiz irony along the lines of, “Here’s another cheerful ditty.” I understand how that flattered the audience, of course, but I guess it seemed to underline his position as something of a genre writer. I mean, I like genre writers, but it broke the spell a bit when I was young.