Richard Thompson: Rockin' Guitar In The Celt Tradition

IT'S NOT that he's unknown, exactly. Time magazine featured him and then-wife Linda in its August 30, 1982 issue, saying that his music "has the clenched power and pitiless clarity of a Francis Bacon painting." Rolling Stone that same year proclaimed him "one of the great buried treasures of British rock." Writing in the New York Times last year, Robert Palmer called his most recent release, Hand Of Kindness, "an apparently effortless blend of rock and soul with sprightly dance rhythms. There's nothing more infectious in all of pop music." Strong words, but they mirror the strength of both Richard Thompson's music and the devotion of those who know it. With his new Polygram contract in hand, Thompson is getting ready to break out of his cult.