Teddy Thompson in Concert and Conversation
“Country music has been inescapable for me, a recurring theme,” says Teddy Thompson. “At the age of
10 or 11, that’s the first thing I heard where my ears pricked up and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is music? I like
this.’”
The simplicity and emotional intensity of classic country – à la Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and George
Jones – has been a big part of Thompson’s own sound as an artist, which the New York Times called
“beautifully finessed” and NPR hailed as “the musical equivalent of an arrow to the heart.”
Back in 2007, he explored his roots with Up Front and Down Low, an album of Nashville golden era
favorites. And now he’s picked up the thread again. Thompson says, “The pandemic hit and all bets
were off, and the question came up, ‘What can we do musically just for fun? I said, ‘Let’s do some
country songs.’” Where the earlier record was made with what he calls “an off-the-cuff approach,” his
latest release, My Love Of Country goes much deeper.
“The goal was to do it in the way that country records I love – mostly from the ’60s – were made,” says
Thompson. “Everything was mapped out, with charts and string parts in place. The musicians came in,
and we cut the songs the way they did back then. We just blazed through them.”
The results are riveting. Thompson’s rich, honeyed voice responds beautifully to “A Picture Of Me
(Without You),” “Cryin’ Time,” I Fall To Pieces” and other songs of poetic despondence, throwing off
both sparks and tears without ever seeming showy. You can hear how he’s listened deeply to the genre’s
masters, absorbing the finer stylistic points of their influence. But rather than imitate, he does
something more nuanced and profound. He makes the material his own, and makes the familiar sound
new. “Many of these songs I thought were a bit beyond me when I was younger, too big to tackle,”
Teddy says. “’A Picture Of Me,’ ‘You Don’t Know Me,’ big ballads like that, which I think maybe take a
little bit of maturity to do justice to. I was excited to sing those songs now, after knowing them for
decades. I think at least I’ve earned the chance to try.”