When Thompson was on a roll5 Out Of 5 Stars
In 1988, Capitol took a roll of the dice and signed Richard Thompson to an American record deal. Thompson had several brushes with success, and had skipped across several smaller labels, all while seeing that breakthrough always just seemingly out of reach. Someone at Hollywood and Vine must have seen this as an opportunity, and five studio albums ensued. With the promotional wheels of Capitol behind him, Thompson suddenly found his albums creeping into the top hundred, and the man himself on a serious creative roll. "Action Packed" is a superb collection that skims the cream from those albums and adds a new track.
Starting with "Amnesia" and going through "You? Me? Us?," Thompson was matched to producer Mitchell Froom, who seemed perfectly aligned towards Thompson's playing and songwriting. To his credit, Thompson embraced the style and finessed it, delivering some remarkable songs and his usual killer guitar playing. I challenge anyone to listen to "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" and not come away with the opinion that it is simply one of the best folk songs ever written or to hear "I Feel Good" and miss it's cynical bite. Those are just a pair of the classic songs on "Action Packed," balancing semi-rock songs with tenderly played pieces like "Beeswing." His final Capitol disc, "Mock Tudor," produced by Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, and still had Froom on keyboards
Thompson has always had a soft spot for writing about the down-trodden, and there are a few of those here, as well. "Mr. Rebound" describes the woe of a man who always seems to be the fall-back when the women of his dreams needs a fling with somebody new. Then's there's "Waltzing's For Dreamers," in it's stately 3/4 time as Thompson describes each of the three steps of breaking his heart. The bonus tracks are no slouches, either, when you consider that they are usually the stuff of B-sides. The softly seductive "Persuasion" (co-written by Split Enz' Tim Finn) is cast as a ballad featuring his son, Teddy. "Mr Rebound" and "Fully Qualified to Be Your Man" were unavailable on CD prior to "Action Packed" and were recorded for "Mock Tudor."
Thompson has been making brilliant songs for so many years that it's difficult to recommend single CD's without busting your wallet. But for a blazing period between 1988 and 1999, he ran a streak of strong albums, and "Action Packed" pulls that decade into an enjoyably listenable single CD experience.
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