1. In November, 1990, I'd been offered and I accepted a full time position teaching English at Lane Community College -- I'd been teaching at LCC part-time since the fall of 1989. Then, in December, as a way to celebrate this life-changing occurrence, I drove Jeff and me to San Francisco around the 27th (my 37th birthday) and we went to the 1990 run of four Grateful Dead shows at the Oakland Coliseum, peaking with the New Year's Eve show.
On the way to San Francisco, Jeff asked me if I'd ever listened to Richard and Linda Thompson. As I remember, a few years earlier I'd seen the album cover for Shoot Out the Lights lying around at Don and Per's apartment and I have a faint memory of Don thinking highly of the album, but until Jeff punched his cassette tape into the Honda's tape player, I hadn't heard it. The tape blew me away. But, for some reason, I didn't follow up -- not right away, at least.
But, later in 1991, on July 21st to be exact, my wife at the time and I buzzed up to the Northwest Service Center in Portland to hear Richard Thompson live. Richard and Linda Thompson hadn't been together musically or maritally for nearly ten years, Thompson had recorded a steady stream of solo albums, and this concert was in support of his latest release, Rumor and Sigh.
That concert changed everything for me. For starters, it was one of the most thrilling performances I'd ever seen any musician give. As a result, I made mail orders for every recording of his I could find (except I didn't yet enter the world of Fairport Convention). Eventually, I had in my possession and played over and over again all of his recordings with Linda Thompson and all of his solo projects.
I became a fervent about going to as many Richard Thompson live shows as I could in the 1990s. I heard him at the Wild Duck, the Shedd, the Roseland Theater, the Portland Zoo, and the Aladdin Theater, multiple times at each of these venues (but, I think, only once at the Portland Zoo and once at the Shedd).
So, when I listened to the Richard Thompson interview on Fresh Air on Friday, I returned home and realized I hadn't listened to Richard or Richard and Linda Thompson at home for years.
I no longer possess all those lps and cds I once owned. I remember pausing before I gave them away when we moved from Eugene to Maryland, but I was pretty ruthless about moving as few things as possible across the country and let go of all those recording.
But, thanks to my Echo Dot and Amazon music, I listened all day today to Richard Thompson and, even more fulfilling, to a bunch of songs by the incomparable Richard and Linda Thompson.
As I listened, as I let the music move me and let many memories sweep over me, I wondered, "Has there ever been a box set compiled of all of Richard and Linda Thompson's recordings?"
I discovered there is a boxed set out there in the world. It's called, Hard Luck Stories, 1972-1982. It includes not only tracks from Richard and Linda Thompson's several cds, but also demos, outtakes, live versions of songs, and other delights that are included in any solid retrospective box set.
Just one problem: the first pressing of this box set sold out. I did a quick search online and not one vendor I looked up has it in stock. Some are available on eBay. I'm not quite ready to make an eBay order. For now, I'm going to keep checking around.
And I'm putting out a call: I'm not sure who among the readers of this blog listens to Richard and Linda Thompson but if you happen to have this box set or if you happen to spot it at a music store like the Long Ear or Eugene's House of Records, and if you have any contact info for me, please let me know.
I'm going to hope that sometime I can find this box set and, if I do, I'm going to hope the one I find is not one of the ones that has defective disks. Yes, discouraging as it is, a small number of those box sets were flawed.
2. As I've said I would, today I chopped up the slices of pork roast I had left over and combined it with white onion, broccoli, baby Yukon potatoes, yellow curry paste, coconut milk, fish sauce, soy sauce, and brown sugar and made a delicious curry sauce. I boiled some egg noodles and poured some of the sauce over them for a delicious dinner. I have a good amount of sauce still in the fridge and maybe my next meal will be curry and jasmine rice. I'll see.
3. I continued my correspondence with David, my friend from our days in two theme dorms at Whitworth. Some of our discussion moved me to see if one guy we had a fun night with over beers in Akili (the dorm David and I lived in) was anywhere to be found on the World Wide Web. He was. Bob D. is a retired English professor and had a splendid career at Wittenberg University.
Our RA in Akili was Mark V. and a quick search of his name not only informed me that he is the Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and Politics at the John C. Danford Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, but some YouTube videos also popped up and I listened to Mark discuss his latest book project.
That was fun and I sent my discoveries on to David.
No comments:
Post a Comment