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Chris Thompson is a singer/songwriter who has worked extensively in Europe and the USA with a number of folk luminaries - and is perhaps best known for his composition "Hamilton" - a song recorded and made famous by the Big Muffin Serious Band. Chris plays regularly around town as well as teaching guitar, and is at present engaged in completing an Arts Degree at Waikato University. With his show "Folk, Blues and Beyond", Chris presents a selection of authentic and original guitar music, with an accent on original songs and their writers. From traditional music to folk/rock and psychedelia with a look at contemporary country along the way, Chris brings a programme of roots music with an edge to Community Radio Hamilton Saturdays at 9pm
Chris' podcasts
19 Dec 2009
Chris is taking a break to focus on studies, but he agreed to leave us with another wonderful live to air of originals and selected covers including Dylan, Neil Young, JJ Cale and Davy Graham. It's goooood stream | download [right click > save as] 49MB
31 Jan 09
Another great live studio jam - this time Chris plays a varied set of originals and covers from the likes of Danny O'Keefe, Frank Wakefield and Dave Von Ronk - kick back and enjoy ! stream [60min]
Chris recently recorded a live-to-air during Border Radio - playing some of his favourite orginals and covers. Listen to this special performance - stream | download [58min]
Reviews
from mysterex.blogspot.com
Classic Kiwi Albums - Chris Thompson
Chris Thompson - Minstrelsy (WEA Records New Zealand) ? 1977
A collection of tracks from the early 1970s on a limited release album on a fleeting British folk label with a couple of songs recorded recently? It didn't sound promising but the same year punk's rumble became a roar a young Kiwi folkie on a long hard road released a superlative collection of eastern influenced psychedelic folk which barely rippled a pop pond bloated with the musings of mid career singer-songwriters.
Waikato born Thompson played around the prestigious London folk scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s with Bert Jansch, Davy Graham, Rosemary Hardman (with whom he recorded Firebird in 1971), and John Renbourn. He was American folkie Julie Felix's guitarist on her 1971 mainstream bid Clotho's Web album for RAK Records (Micky Most's label). He'd played to 27,000 Kiwis at an anti-war concert at height of Vietnam War at Western Springs where Felix urged Kiwis against conscription, and toured with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Waves, and John Hanlon.
But for all that Thompson had only released two albums before 1977. Chris Thompson (1973) on the obscure Irish label Village Thing Records, and Echoes From the Pit (1975) on Direction Records. The first had hardly appeared at all. It'd been a small run release mostly destroyed in a tax dodge. The second was on a Kiwi indie.
It was with Minstrelsy, Thompson's major label debut, for WEA Records, an album cobbled together from sessions recorded in London and Dublin in 1971 and 1973, together with some 1977 tracks, that his talent finally came into focus in New Zealand.
Minstrelsy was a masterpiece with a unity which belied its scattered origins. Brave musically. Housed in a bright gold sleeve, a blazing red haze around a blue tinged guitar playing Thompson. Minstrelsy, spelt out up the fret board.
Back In The City, the opening track, is an early version of London Blues (aka Chelsea Style), recorded with Bill Leader at Sharp House in London in 1971. Leader was a folk recording icon who'd captured Brit-folk classics such as Bert and John. The album highpoint uses a swooning lysergic mix of tabla, sitar and acoustic guitar, fragile words spun throughout.
Drifty eastern psych-tinged guitar, a distracted vocal, and tabla from Keshav Sathe of Magic Carpet also power Her Hair Was Long, which appeared originally on Village Thing's Chris Thompson from 1973.
The other track plucked from CH is Live At Trinity College, Dublin (called De Debil Take De Blue-Tail Fly on CH) a foot stomping freeform acoustic blues. One of a number of masterful instrumentals on the album such as I Dreamed I Fished Off Sharp Black Rocks, a dreamy blend of folk picking and eerie psych shimmer.
Where I Came Into Your House with Brian Dunning on flutes first appeared as Upstairs? Downstairs? on Echoes From The Pit. It's another finely wrought folk ballad, the piping power of Dunning's flute recalling Look Blue Go Purple's first EP. There's a lot of that acoustic psych Dunedin Nun feel on this record.
You're Sailing Away, Study in G Minor, Will You Be My Friend?, Where Is My Wild Rose? and As I Walked Out are all unique to Minstrelsy. As I Walked Out and Will You Be My Friend? recall Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett a la The Gnome and The Scarecrow with its innocent narrative and nursery rhyme guitar, as does You're Sailing Away, which has a light gentle sway and wide eyed words. Where Is My Wild Rose? nods to trad. A standard already. Study In D continues Thompson's love of the acoustic guitar instrumental. There's not a dud amongst them.
Thompson lives in Hamilton. He has released over eleven albums in his own right with numerous contributions to others. He still plays out.
Chris Thompson ? Minstrelsy (WEA Records New Zealand) ? 1977
Back In The City/ I Dreamed I Fished Off Sharp Black Rocks/ As I Walked Out/ You're Sailing Away/ Live At Trinity College, Dublin// Where Is My Wild Rose?/ Where I Came Into Your House/ Study In G Minor/ Will You Be My Friend?/ Her Hair Was Long
© 2007 - Andrew Schmidt
From critic.co.nz
Chris Thompson: For My Double
September 06, 2004 12:45
Wild Rose Music
The debate about what qualifies as New Zealand music has raged quietly for some time now. Do bands that have cut their teeth playing foreign styles, or earned their fame on foreign shores earn the status of true New Zealand music? What about acts like the Deceptikonz or the Brunettes who proudly recognise, in verse, their American accents?
Well, there should be no doubt with Chris Thompson. He has featured on the New Zealand folk scene for around three decades, and his Kiwi accent is painfully overt. Cultural cringe is one thing, but Thompson?s Noo Zillind accent could strip the bark off a pohutakawa. His latest album, For My Double, makes no exception to this trend. It is a quirky and eccentric collection of tunes that dwell somewhere under the general banner of folk.
Unlike his earlier albums, which have been exercises in more straightforward acoustic country, blues, and folk, For My Double is eclectic, from the unexpectedly beautiful and accomplished slide-guitar blues on ?For My Double?, to his not-very-good stab at loungey jazz on ?I Like Belinda Carlisle?. I?m guessing he saw Belinda Carlisle live with the B-52s and John Farnham at this year?s International Mission Concert in Hawke?s Bay, and was duly impressed.
He even makes a stab at the currently fashionable trend for garagey electro-clash on ?Them Extreme Sports?, with Electric Mandolin/Oscillator contributed by the mysterious Mr Snakes. Other track highlights include ?That?s Nice? and ?You?re A Condom? (fast-forward to 1 minute 5 seconds if you?ve never heard someone croon ?you?re a condom, baby? before). As you may have guessed from the song titles, his lyrics are, well, a little strange. But the impenetrable thickness of his Kiwi accent makes them undoubtedly charming.
It is important to remember that Chris Thompson is a hoary old folkie from Raglan who sings weird songs. He is not the saviour of rock. He is a poster-boy for acid flashbacks, the epitome of the term ?smelly old hippie?. But blow me down if For My Double is not a bit of fun. Chris Thompson doesn?t take himself too seriously, and neither should you, you sour-faced bastard.
Grade: B+
Sam Mackisack
Volunteer Writer
Feb 08
A review of Chris' long deleted debut album has appeared on UK Folk Music site The Unbroken Circle.....
Chris Thompson - self titled Reviewed by Mark Coyle Released UK 1973
This album has the unfair distinction of being the lowest sellers on the classic Village Scene folk label of the early 1970s due to poor distribution. It is very rare on album and became somewhat legendary as it is one of the few records which balances it's scarcity with spellbinding quality. Chris Thompson came from New Zealand and travelled around the world in the late 1960s before ending up in the UK. He brings to his music a wandering rootless quality that reminds of Bert Jansch. The psychedelic era was at it's core about liberation and in Chris Thompson we find this quality meaning people consistently describe the album as psychedelic when it is not typical of that sound. The songs are simple circular acoustic folk based with his yearning vocals weaving over the top. These songs are hypnotic, never repeating yet evolving and exploring melodic themes. Some of the tracks are complemented by members of Magic Carpet, an innovative folk-raga band. The first song an instrumental used sitar and guitar, others used tablas and eastern percussion and this is where the psychedelic influence is most prominent. The song writing is every bit as good as Nick Drake or Steve Tilston with whom the album shares a stark, direct quality. 'London Blues' has pleading, haunting lyrics about inner city vagrancy which is then explored on 'Back In The City', an earlier version with sitar and hand percussion. The CD has excellent notes and has tracks from later albums added back in. It's a complete and definitive reissue from 'Scenesof' who are to be congratulated. For fans of folk music and the curious genre of wyrd-folk it is utterly essential and an album that you will return to throughout your life.
Chris' videos
Dec 08 Chris Thompson and Nate Taiapa perform Crossroads Blues, Flagstaff, Hamilton
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