Well beyond the muscle-flexing of the manosphere, there are men who wear their hearts on their sleeves, and show much deeper courage than the macho poseurs and influencers who pretend that all is well and more. Teddy Thompson is such a specialist of the heart, and his new album delves fearlessly into love and pain, never afraid of celebrating loss rather than boasting of conquests and wins.
Teddy Thompson is hardly alone, as the scions of boy bands, tenors who play with falsetto androgyny, dominate the charts. But he does it to perfection. Ably supported by veteran producer David Mansfield – who along with his former bandmate T-Bone Burnett brings to the work a combination of consummate taste and minimalist shine – the new songs are little gems. There is a gigantic debt to the Beatles here, who like Teddy Thompson, were steeped in the best country and soul, not least the sweet harmonies and romanticism of the Everly Brothers.
Producer Mansfield is a towering presence here – his list of credits alone makes that clear: “Guitars, Pedal Steel, Lap Steel, Keyboards, Percussion, Tic-Tac Bass, Celesta, Mellotron, Ondes Martenot, Clarinet Programming, and Strings”. The mellotron – often used in some of the Beatles’ first ground-breaking stylistic experiments – makes a brief and subtle appearance in “Baby It’s You”. Considering country looms so large in Thompson’s songs – the heartache, the yearning in particular, it’s indicative of the album’s less-is-more aesthetic that the pedal steel only appears once, subtly in “Worst Two Weeks of my Life”. This is a moment when Thompson comes close to cliché – a trope of country, it should be said – and sings of “the real me, a catalogue of shame”.
Thompson has a great country voice, occasionally flirting with a hint of yodel and breaking into appealing falsetto, that same high-tenor thrill that the best male gospel singers will use to send the women in the congregation into a swoon. The connection with black music is never far in styles from the Southern USA, and one of the album’s stand-out tracks “So This is Heartache” is countrified soul, in classic 6/8 time, complete with an evocation of the Memphis Horns that gave body to the great Stax and Hi Records hits, and swirls of sweet Hammond B-3 organ.
It’s not all heartache – and the mood is lifted with the more self-affirming “Make Up Your Mind”, a bouncy track, embellished by a characteristically brilliant guitar riff from dad. Richard Thompson. A brief moment - but testimony to Thompson’s glorious lineage and roots in folk-rock aristocracy.
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