I Saw Richard Thompson at the Pageant Last Night

by Steve Pick

She’s married to Harry Shearer. I can only imagine the dinner-table conversations in that house. Or, my God! The parties they must throw. You almost have to study up on bons mots for a month before you’d go to their house.

What am I talking about? You thought you were reading a review of Richard Thompson’s performance Monday night at the Pageant, and indeed you are. It’s just that my head was turned by one Judith Owen, one of two co-stars Richard brought in tow for this year’s edition of “1000 Years of Popular Music.” And, looking her up on the interweb this morning, I find out she’s married to one of the funniest guys in the world, Harry Shearer.

Thompson hadn’t done the “1000 Years” show in a while, and never in St. Louis before. Still, I’d heard the album he released via his website, and knew the general schtick. Take medieval troubadour ballads, Italian love songs, a bit of early opera, some boat working songs, Music Hall, 20^th Century classic pop, and rock’n’roll, and broadly speaking cover the entire history of music that people have loved.

Hey, I loved it when he did it all himself, but bringing Owen and Debra Dobkin along for the ride was an inspired idea. For one thing, it enabled a three-part madrigal from the 16^th century to send shivers up and down my spine. Holy cow, I could have sat there for an entire night of that sort of thing.

But, there was so much more history to cover. Richard’s rendition of “Shenandoah” was exquisite, and the music hall number the three did was plenty of fun. I’d tell you more about the first set, but I don’t know the names of any of the material. Suffice it to say that Owen conjured up memories of the days when Richard sang with Linda, but threw in a wider range of stylistic ability than even that wonderful partnership.

Further evidence came in the second set, when her versions of “Night and Day” and “Cry Me a River” wound up being among the evening’s greatest moments. Not to be outdone, though, Richard took the lead on a scintillating “Friday On My Mind,” and the final encore of three early Beatles songs (ending with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and I can’t believe I can’t remember the first two). Here was rock’n’roll exhilaration, done with acoustic guitar, half a drum kit, and three maniacal vocalists falling in love with the music all over again.

Please, please, please tell me this year’s shows will be released on CD, because there were only a few repeats from the original version, and the role of Owen (who also played keyboards) and Dobkin (who sang wonderfully and played all the percussion) needs to be documented.

Plenty of options to buy Richard Thompson for your collection. I recommend each and every one of these. And, if you were as entranced by Judith Owen as I was, you can pick up these, too.