COME ALL YE!

RICHARD THOMPSON: THE ’60 and ’70s continue to be musically of great interest to people. Although we thought it was very ordinary at the time, it does turn out to have been an exceptional period – a great musical crossroads. I thought I’d just chuck down some reminiscences before I popped my clogs, as they say. Not that I intend to any time soon!

You think that you remember everything, but when you actually sit down and start to write, stuff comes out that you’d forgotten. I think it helped me, actually. There was a kind of catharsis in writing about that time, which was part joyous – as it is when you’re a teenager – and part painful. You forget about the painful stuff, but that mix is in there, and it was quite extraordinary to go back and really think about it.

I suppose I was fortunate in the people I gravitated towards. Meeting Simon [Nicol] and Ashley [Hutchings], who became the core of Fairport, was a wonderful thing, and a crucial thing. Very early on, about 1967, I could tell we had some kind of musical future, even if it only lasted a year. That was good enough for me, and I could put off thinking about getting a real job until I was at least 22. Then when Sandy [Denny] joined, that made us a really good band – we felt this was actually something quite transcendental. All we wanted to do was play music to an audience, and it just happened to be that time when the floodgates were opened and so many bands could pass through. We felt that circumstances dragged us along. There was a musical explosion in London – so many different styles were emerging that you could play almost anything and be accepted. You could play folk-rock and be accepted by an audience that also listened to The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and Pink Floyd. It was all just part of the hippie culture, this underground musical revolution.

The scene was a real community – people would help each other out, lend each other gear, tow each other back down the M1. Now people say, “My God, you played with