Interview by Joe Montague
A
Better Man
seems like an apt description of Blues guitarist and singer – songwriter Billy
Thompson and it is also the title of his current album, an album that is being
played on radio stations worldwide and has in particular garnered favorable
radio airplay in the northeast United States. The former army brat who grew up
in Fort Polk, Louisiana, prior to his parents moving to New Mexico and
eventually as an adult he made his home in San Diego, has served up his best
album to date. In creating what has turned into a spell binding, note bending
and virtuosic guitar performance, Billy Thompson collaborated with drummer and
producer Tony Braunagel, who has played and recorded with Eric Burdon, Rickie
Lee Jones, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal, and enlisted the services
of Grammy Award winning sound engineer and producer Ed Cherney, who mixed
A Better Man.
Thompson who has also played with an impressive lineup of artists including,
Little Milton, Albert King, Art Neville, Chuck Berry and Elvin Bishop, assembled
his own cast of impressive musicians to back him on this album, including,
guitarist Johnny Lee Schell (Bonnie Raitt, Renne Geyer),
keyboardist
Mike Finnigan (Etta James, Crosby Stills and Nash, Peter Frampton, Rod Stewart,
Tracy Chapman and Buddy Guy), guitarist Kenny Gradney (Little Feat, Carly Simon,
Delaney and Bonnie, Robert Palmer, Warren Zevon), bassist James “Hutch”
Hutchinson (Professor Longhair, James Booker, Garth Brooks, Elton John, Kathy
Mattea, Tanya Tucker, Pattie La Belle, Bryan Adams, Stevie Nicks) and of course
Tony Braunagel on drums.
It was while his
parents were moving about the country when Billy Thompson was growing up that
music first started to shape his life, as he listened to R&B, Pop and Rock n
Roll music on the 50,000 watt radio station KOMA out of Oklahoma City. He also
listened to Wolfman Jack broadcasting on XERB out of Del Rio, Texas.
“I started
playing the harmonica at age 18, but nobody ever pushed me towards lessons or
anything,” he says, while admitting it took a long time before he felt
comfortable playing in front of an audience. “I was pretty shy. I knew I could
sing. With my first band we did Steve Miller tunes and I don’t know what all and
probably a few Neil Young, “Down By The River,” because it was that era. It was
more of a rock approach than it was a Blues approach, but eventually I started
playing Blues.
I put the harmonica down and I started playing
the guitar at about age 19. Country Rock was kind of happening, so I thought I
should learn some of that.
Eventually, I discovered that I was not really
happy doing that.
I am happy finding my voice within the Blues
based approach. It was 1987 is when I really started taking a strictly Blues
based approach.”
Talking about his current album
A Better Man,
Thompson says, “This is a collection of songs that I had written along the way
and one of the things that I have been trying not to do is focus on (things such
as) my baby left me and fill in the blank. My girlfriend Kirsten Trump co-wrote
five of the tunes. I write the music and the melody for whatever lyrics she
writes. I have a few that I am chipping away at right now. She will have an idea
and she will say that she would like it to be like a slow Blues and maybe minor
sounding and then I will fool with it. I kind of beat (the songs) into shape and
it takes a while, because they aren’t coming from me. I feel that I am good at
that.”
Billy Thompson also collaborated with another highly regarded singer -
songwriter, Sue Leonard (KD. Lang, Bon Jovi) for the song “Are You Ready?” which
appears on the current album. “She had the idea, the melody and the hook (he
sings Are You Ready?) and I wrote pretty well everything else. We have written a
couple of songs that are pretty cool. We have another one that I would really
like to record next time around. The idea that Sue had with “Are You Ready?” was
(from the woman’s perspective) of someone coming over and laying her down. If
you listen to Clapton you will never hear a tune that is that suggestive and I
guess I’ve come out of that whole mold, but I have received great responses
(from people) since doing that tune. I am sure that it would sound good, doing
it as a duet with Sue or having Sue do a duet on her own. She is a great gal, a
great singer and she is a real character.”
Including his Remixed and Remastered compilation album,
A Better Man
is Billy Thompson’s fifth solo effort. He debuted with
Coat of Many Colors,
which he describes as taking more of a Stax Records approach, with his music
reflecting the feel of artists such as Sam and Dave and Eddie Floyd.
Tangerine Sky
followed next and he began to move away from the Staxx and Memphis feel with his
music and his music took on more of a New Orleans vibe to it.
The third album,
Area 51
got its name when he was traveling with two other musicians and two of them saw
what he describes as a light that zipped across the mountain top. The music on
Area 51
was influenced by a meeting between Billy Thompson and Sonny Landreth, during
which Thompson asked Landreth to teach him how to play behind the bar slide.
Remixed
and Remastered was simply a compilation of the first three albums.
Billy Thompson is also a much sought after Blues guitarist and music supervisor
for theatrical productions, an aspect of his career that began in San Diego
during 1999 with the production
Thunder Knocking On The Door,
which featured music by Keb Mo, and he later made the trip to New York City with
the same musical.
Thunder Knocking At The Door
also marked the first time that Thompson worked with Tony Award winning
playwright Keith Glover.
In
2004 he once again worked with Keith Glover, this time on
Rose of Corazon.
Thompson was asked to co-write the music and to act as the music supervisor for
the production. Other highlights have included an appearance with
Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues,
which was performed at the
John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts.
His decision to relocate to West Virginia, was partially influenced by the
opportunity to do some work with the Contemporary American Theatre Festival.
“(The theatre
experience) has been good for me, because I don’t really read or write music, so
I am able to have a musical
director put the music into
Finale and
print out charts and do all of the things that I would have to hire someone to
do. It has been an interesting experience,” he says.
Billy Thompson may be
A Better Man,
but Blues music fans everywhere are better off when he keeps creating songs like
those that populate his current album. You can listen to select tracks from
Billy Thompson’s
A Better Man by
visiting his
Reverbnation website.
On September 14th,
Billy Thompson will perform at Sweet Caroline’s in Winchester, Virginia, October
1st
at the Washington Grove Festival at Washington Grove, Virginia and on October 18th
he will be back in San Diego with concert details still to be announced. You can
check his website for more concert dates this fall.
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