Teddy Thompson

It’s singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson’s unenviable fate that every article and review about him is going to lead with the fact that his parents are the British folk-rock legends Richard and Lida Thompson. (See?)  On the other hand, we can all envy both the talent he inherited from them and – more importantly – both the quantity and the quality of the music he has created with that talent. He’s not a pyrotechnical guitar innovator like his dad, and his voice isn’t one of the seven wonders of the world like his mom’s. Instead, he’s something both very different and, I’m willing to say, equally wonderful: a songwriter who can craft melodies that break your heart, and a singer whose voice will break it again with its slightly grainy, rough-hewn clarity. When you hear his lyrics you’ll wonder why you didn’t ever think of those phrases; when you hear him sing you’ll wish you could spend an evening hanging out with him. And oh, the hooks, the hooks, the hooks – when the chorus resolves on “Love Her for That” you could just start crying. And yes, that’s his dad contributing the guitar pyrotechnics on several songs. This was his debut album; he just gets better from here.