Post your questions for Richard Thompson — SkimNews
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- Richard Thompson, now 77, will release his 20th solo studio album 'Hippies, Thugs and Heroes' on 16 October, recorded with instinctive songs often captured in just a couple of takes and 'full of picaresque characters and storytelling,' per the source.
- Thompson began his career as a teenager with Fairport Convention, helping albums like 1969's 'Liege and Lief' enter the British folk canon by writing new material rather than covering traditional folk standards.
- Thompson and then-wife Linda (married 1972) recorded a duo catalogue including 'I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight' and 'Pour Down Like Silver' before he converted to Sufism and temporarily stepped away from music.
- Thompson created the '1000 Years of Popular Music' show spanning from medieval 'Sumer is Icumen In' to Britney Spears' 'Oops! I Did It Again,' and has collaborated with Werner Herzog, David Byrne, and Harry Shearer.
- Thompson split with Linda in the late 1970s and relocated to the US, building what the source describes as a 'radically cosmopolitan body of work' drawing from global cultures and folk forms.
- Readers can submit questions by 10am BST on Monday 12 October; Thompson's answers will run the following Friday in the Film & Music section and online.
Why it matters: Thompson's 20th solo album lands on 16 October alongside a reader Q&A, giving fans direct access to an artist whose six-decade arc — Fairport Convention, the Linda duos, a Sufi-influenced hiatus, and a US-based solo career — has shaped British folk-rock. The 12 October question deadline and Friday publication window make this a tightly timed, participatory moment for a musician the source calls an 'undisputed icon.'
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