Either way, I'm both amused and impressed. I never thought of trying to make a cover of "When I am Laid in Earth"--I have enough to do singing it as it was written!
Though I do occasionally do Hadyn in jazz when the mood takes me.

He does some cheerful ones too.

Cassandra, he just does the instrumental background for "When I Am Laid in Earth". It's really Judith Owen's number.

You can sing that? I'm impressed.

We had the good fortune to be in NYC at the beginning of this month and to see his performance at Town Hall. Wow. Talk about virtuousity, not just on RT's part but on Michael Jerome's, Pete Zorn's, et al. My wife noted, "Going to hear Richard Thompson, you never risk that he'll blow off a performance like Bob Dylan sometimes does: he takes the work seriously." She also liked his tight shiny trousers.

But a track it *does* have is this:

Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt

Thmopson says in the liner notes that this is a song from Brittany (and there Teresa's item title pops up again...)

I didn't see Teresa's earlier post, saying what I just said. Whoops.

Well, I thot it was a *great* joke on RT's part.

Thompson in some ways strikes me as a hopeless romantic--the boy meets girl/blood everywhere songs often end pretty well for the girl, at least! :-) ('52 Vincent Black Lightning as the immediate example) (Madman Michael as counterexample)

I wonder if there's a link between love of old ballads and love of Richard Thompson, or if it's a false statistic facilitated by the Fairport Convention element?

***

Theresa then pointed out the similarities in narrative content probably had a lot of bearing, and I tend to agree. Also, there seems to be a lot of overlap between fans and performers of blues and bluegrass and English/Celtic folk. And the more narrative traditions of rock and roll.

I should probably stop before I get started on the folk process and balladeering and how it leads to novel writing if not quickly repressed. :-)

--a third-generation Transylvanian...

that's *Teresa* above. :-P