{"product_id":"beeswing-fairport-folk-rock-and-finding-my-voice-1967-75","title":"Beeswing: Fairport, Folk Rock and Finding My Voice, 1967–75","description":"Product Description\n\n\nTHE TOP FIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe memoir of international music icon Richard Thompson, co-founder of the legendary folk rock group Fairport Convention.'I encourage everyone to read this wonderful book.'ELVIS COSTELLO'Thompson could be said to be an English Dylan - only in some ways he's even better than that.'GUARDIAN 'Fresh and exploratory.' NEW YORK TIMES'Gripping . . . affecting and enlightening.' GUARDIAN'Perceptive, lyrical, amiable and seemingly effortless.' CAUGHT BY THE RIVER'Thompson writes exceptionally well.' NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKSGuitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson came of age during an extraordinary moment in British culture: it was 1967 and popular music was reflecting a great cultural awakening. In the midst of this, eighteen-year-old Thompson co-founded Fairport Convention and helped invent a new genre of music.Thompson packed more than a lifetime of experiences into his late teens and twenties. From the pivotal years of 1967 to 1975, he matured into a major musician, survived a devasting car crash and departed Fairport Convention for a duo act with his wife, Linda, at the height of the band's popularity. His discovery and ultimate embrace of Sufism profoundly reshaped his approach to everything in his life and, of course, the music he wrote thereafter.In Beeswing, Thompson goes back to his childhood, recreates the spirit of the sixties and takes us inside life on the road in the UK and the US, crossing paths - and occasionally sharing the stage - with the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Jimi Hendrix and more.An intimate memoir of musical discovery, personal history and social revelation, Beeswing - like Patti Smith's Just Kids or Marianne Faithfull's Faithfull - vividly captures the life of one of Britain's most significant artists during a heady period of creative intensity, in a world on the cusp of change.'Honest in its self-appraisal, often very moving and sometimes extremely funny - this quiet joy of a memoir is just what you'd expect from one of the finest British musicians of the last 50 years.'RICHARD WILLIAMS'With Beeswing [Thompson] adds master memoirist to his long list of artistic accomplishments . . . fascinating.'BOB MOULD\n\n\nReview\n\n\nI encourage everybody to read this wonderful book . . . I listened again to the Fairport records, while reading the book, and its something it makes you want to do. -- Elvis Costello\n\n\nHonest in its self-appraisal, often very moving and sometimes extremely funny - this quiet joy of a memoir is just what you'd expect from one of the finest British musicians of the last 50 years. -- Richard Williams\n\n\nRichard Thompson is one of the world's great guitarists and songwriters, and with Beeswing Richard adds master memoirist to his long list of artistic accomplishments. Beeswing is a fascinating look at his formative years in the vibrant, vital London music scene of the 1960s. -- Bob Mould\n\n\nI found this book as inspiring as \nThompson's\n music. I devoured and \nsavoured\n it. It's one of the better musician \nbiographies\n that \nI've\n read. -- Steve Gunn\n\nThompson's unending fascination for the esoteric, combined with an essentially suburban mindset, drives his experience of the period . . .\nlively . . .\nBeeswing is a concise, appealingly modest memoir on that brief, idealistic time when British folk collided with rock and audiences did not run screaming in the opposite direction. -- Will Hodgkinson ―\nThe Times\n\n\nGripping . . . affecting and \nenlightening\n . . . [a] quiet joy of a memoir, in which honesty and humour are burnished rather than dulled by a certain restraint. -- Richard Williams ―\nGuardian (Book of the Day)\n\n\nPerceptive, lyrical, amiable and seemingly effortless . . .\n Reading\nBeeswing, \nyou are in the company of a relaxed, amusing, confident raconteur who also happens to be one of, if not the, finest British guitarists of his generation and a unique and treasured songwriter . . .\nrequired reading. -- Andy Childs ","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39919757819989,"sku":"9780571348169N","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/0df5ab16-ddef-4a2a-8767-ce55019e841e.jpg?v=1644405919","url":"https:\/\/smeikalbooks.co.uk\/en-us\/products\/beeswing-fairport-folk-rock-and-finding-my-voice-1967-75","provider":"smeikalbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}