"THE FINEST ROCK SONGWRITER AFTER DYLAN AND THE BEST ELECTRIC GUITARIST SINCE HENDRIX." - LOS ANGELES TIMES

Richard Thompson is an icon in the music industry, the consummate musician's musician, whom Rolling Stone has called one of the twenty greatest guitarists of all time. As an influential songwriter, his beloved compositions have been recorded by such artists as Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, and the Neville Brothers, and Time includes one of his own recordings on their All-Time 100 Songs list. In BEESWING: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975 (Publication Date: April 6, 2021; $27.95), written with Scott Timberg, this revered bard reflects on his musical beginnings amid the cultural turmoil of the 1960s and 70s.

Like Patti Smith's Just Kids, BEESWING-which takes its title from one of Thompson's formative songs and includes rare photos from his personal collection-pushes beyond the confines of the typical celebrity memoir to explore the perils of youth and the creative process with profound introspection and unvarnished honesty-all against the backdrop of a society in transition.

Thompson, the son of a London policeman with a drinking problem, rejected the proscribed path of university and at the age of eighteen embraced the musician's life. From the age of three, when he first spied his father's abandoned guitar in the attic, Thompson was enraptured by its sound. At eleven years old, he began formal lessons, but what might have been undiagnosed dyslexia created a disconnect between the notes on the page and the magical sound he could produce on the guitar. A shy kid with a stutter, he found his home among a group of musical friends and together they founded the era-defining band Fairport Convention, which revived the British folk tradition with a new sound. Along such up-and-coming bands as Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, Thompson would play a seminal role in introducing new English sounds into the music of the 70s.

Thompson would leave the band at the height of its success and form a duo with his then-wife, Linda-a pairing that remains legendary in the annals of folk-rock. He also embraced Sufism to help process some of the turmoil of his inner and public lives, a belief system that would reshape not only his life but also his music.

In BEESWING, Thompson, who still tours and performs extensively, integrates the spiritual with the temporal as he reassesses his formative years and the career that followed. "To play a song like 'Meet on the Ledge,' written fifty years ago on my bed in my tiny room in Brent, for reasons I cannot remember, with a worldview that was understandably naïve, is curious," he reflects. "I am and I am not the same person. I have to forgive the author of the song for being youthful, but I salute some of his insights into life, which seem hard-won."

Candid and insightful-not unlike the exquisite lyrics to the titular song-BEESWING is a beautiful paean to an era and to a life dedicated to the raw power of music.