Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior
Richard Thompson on acoustic guitar is a treat. On electric guitar, he’s sublime. That’s why we’re excited about “Sweet Warrior,” a mostly plugged-in return after the acoustic discourse of 2005’s “Front Parlour Ballads” and the soundtrack to the
Werner Herzog film “Grizzly Man.” The 14 tracks find Thompson in typical tasteful form, playing with understated flash that straddles the transatlantic divide to embrace Celtic soul and rootsy Americana, with bits of jazz and Jamaica (”Bad Monkey,” “Francesca”) thrown into the mix. The album’s highlight, however, is one of the acoustic pieces — “”Johnny’s Far Away,” a seven-minute-plus opus in which Thompson’s guitar and mandolin intertwine with and dance around the fiddle work by Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins. Reuters/Billboard
