Beat The Retreat: Songs By Richard Thompson

Various Artists: “Beat The Retreat: Songs By Richard Thompson” (Capitol Records)

One indication of the influence of Richard Thompson on all spheres of the rock and roll (and country, and folk, and traditional, etc) fraternity and sorority is the degree to which his ‘Dimming Of The Day’ (like Dylan Thomas’ ‘The Dying Of The Light’?) has become a kind of international anthem for that Diaspora of musicians who have found themselves ostracised from the multi-media mega-buck mentality simply because their melodies are too unique, too good and too committed to become just another old Campbell’s Soup Tin for the gobbling conglomerates and their corpulent consumerised masses.

Another significant pointer to Thompson’s stature in contemporary music is, naturally, the creation of an album such as Beat The Retreat. The record follows, in a chronological sense, in the footsteps of similar projects such the Leonard Cohen tribute I’m Your Fan or the recent revisionary feast of The Carpenter’s tunes initiated by the likes of Sonic Youth et al. However, you will have to go a long, long way before you encounter a record of covers to surpass this collection here.

In many ways the highly stylised and extremely technical version, vocally, of ‘Dimming Of The Day’ by The Five Blind Boys Of Alabama is a paradigm for the extent to which Thompson’s back catalogue is lovingly yet irreverently excavated. Wary of the time-worn adage that familiarity breeds contempt, through their impassioned experimentation they’ve taken this classic tune of survival out of the realms of the platitudinal that it was in danger of falling into merely from over use or over-popularity. (For a similar endeavour that doesn’t succeed listen to Van Morrison’s rendition of ‘Raglan Road’ on Celtic Heartbeat).

The list of contributors to this just over an hour-long disc is also enough to make you swoon in admiration. X open the proceedings with a flying ‘Shoot Out The Lights’. R.E.M. make the beautifully elegiac ‘Wall Of Death’ sound as though it had been written for them all along. If you haven’t got this in your R.E.M. collection you’ll feel empty inside. While David Byrne’s slant on ‘Just The Motion’ accompanied by Mitchell Froom and Pete Thomas and sparse instrumentation, is wonderful simply to hear the tension Byrne creates between his own neurotic phrasing and what seems like an attempt on his part to vocalise more robustly á la Thompson himself. Meanwhile, with the help of X’s rhythm section of John Doe and D.J. Bonebreak, Bob Mould manages to keep ‘Turning Of The Tide’ melodically under the sound barrier and sound more like X than X themselves!

The highlight of highlights, though, has to be the slip from June Tabor’s deafeningly hushed take on ‘Genesis Hall’ into Dinosaur JR’s ‘I Misunderstood’. J Mascis gives one of his finest performances ever on this psychotically off key Rumour and Sigh track.

There’s so much more here. The unlikely duet of Shawn Colvin and Laudon Wainwright III on ‘A Heart Needs A Home’. Bonnie Raitt surpassing herself on the heartbreaking ‘When The Spell Is Broken’, Syd Straw And Evan Dando giving out lessons in understatement interpreting ‘For Shame Of Doing Wrong’ and always Thompson’s tremendous lyrics buoying up and embellishing each and every shining moment.

Fittingly enough, though, the outstanding moment is Los Lobos’s empathetic delivery of ‘Down Where The Drunkards Roll’. David Hidalgo features strongly on a number of tunes and what other lyric best exemplifies Thompson’s own sympathetic understanding of what it’s like to be down and out, on your own, with no direction home and with no home to go to.

Few deal better with the hearth and the heart than Richard Thompson and Beat The Retreat is, in absentia, and without exaggeration, one of his finest hours. Treasure it.

• Patrick Brennan.